Marion Ammann

Marion Ammann was born in Zurich. In 1991 she graduated from the Academy for School and Church Music in Lucerne, to pursue her schooling as an opera singer at the Opera Studio Biel. She has received awards from the Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund in Zurich and from the cantons of Graubünden and Solothurn, and was granted a scholarship by the Richard Wagner Bursary Fund at Bayreuth. She frequented master classes and private lessons with Helen Haefeli, Denis Hall, Ernst Haefliger, Edith Mathis, Kurt Widmer, Daniel Ferr, Lisbeth Ammeter and Helmuth Rilling. She has guest appeared at the Zurich Opera, Milan’s La Scala, the Helsinki National Opera, and in many other opera houses, including those of Geneva, Basel, Bern, Lucerne, Biel, Stuttgart, Karlsruhe, Leipzig, Münster, Weimar, Besançon, Klosterneuburg, and others.

She scored major successes as Isolde at Wuppertal, Cologne and Lübeck, as Elsa with the WDR Symphony Orchestra and again at the Leipzig Opera; and as Salome and the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Helsinki National Opera and at the State Theatre in Karlsruhe. Her repertoire encompasses Mozartian roles (Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro), parts in operas by Bellini (Adalgisa in Norma, Imogene in Il pirata), Verdi (Elvira in Ernani, Odabella in Attila, Aida, Lady Macbeth), Puccini (Tosca), Wagner (Elsa, Senta, Sieglind, Isolde, Elisabeth, Kundry), Strauss (Empress, Salome, Arabella), Beethoven (Leonora in Fidelio), and others. Her concert-platform commitments have seen her appearing at the Easter Festival in Lucerne, Bohuslav Martinů Days in Basel, as well as in performances at Zurich’s Tonhalle, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, at the Casino in Basel, in Montreux, Porto, Kyoto, or Osaka. Her concert repertoire comprises Verdi’s Requiem, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, Beethoven’s oratorio Christus am Ölberge, and others. In 2007 Marion Ammann made her debut at Milan’s La Scala. The Opernwelt magazine nominated her for the 2009 Singer of the Year Award. Her current commitments include the parts of Sieglind and Arabella at Lübeck, the Empress at Graz and Antwerp, Elsa at the Richard Wagner Festival Wels. For the coming season, she is studying the role of Prothoe in Othmar Schoeck’s opera Penthesilea, for the Frankfurt Opera.