Christine Rice studied at the Royal Northern College of Music. 

Her many operatic roles include the title role in Carmen, Kostelnicka Jenufa, Jezibaba Rusalka, Giulietta Les Contes d’Hoffman, Emilia Otello, the title role in The Rape of Lucretia, Sonyetka Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Blanca The Exterminating Angel, Judith Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, Maddalena Rigoletto and Jenny Smith in Weill’s The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny; and two world premieres: Ariadne in Birtwistle’s The Minotaur and Miranda in Ades’ The Tempest all at Covent Garden. She made her debut at The Metropolitan Opera as Hansel and Giulietta Les contes d’Hoffmann and has appeared at many of the world’s leading opera houses, including the Bayerische Staatsoper, the Teatro Real Madrid, Dutch National Opera, Teatro di San Carlo, Seattle Opera, Frankfurt Opera, Zurich, Geneva, the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Glyndebourne Festival Opera.  

Christine’s concert appearances include Verdi’s Requiem with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, St John Passion with Sir Simon Rattle and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, L’Enfance du Christ with John Nelson and Das Lied von der Erde in Porto.  

Future and recent engagements include Suzuki Madama Butterfly at the ROH, Erda Das Rheingold at English National Opera, Jezibaba Rusalka at Garsington and Edinburgh Festival, Kostelnicka Jenufa in Rouen, Britten’s Phaedra at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, L’Enfance du Christ in Lyon, Messiah in a Deborah Warner production in Lyon and Federica Luisa Miller at the English National Opera. Further future projects include returns to the Opéra de Paris and English National Opera.  

Martin Wölfel was born in Potsdam, where he also grew up, received his first musical training and had his first experiences on stage and in front of the camera. 

After his initial desire to become an actor (he had an admission to the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch” Berlin for 1990), he was drawn to music after all and began studying singing in Dresden in 1990, finishing with a specialized Master with Margret Trappe-Wiel. 

After unsuccessful attempts at tenor singing, he found his destiny as a countertenor in 1993. Since then his career has taken him to the State Operas of Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, the Theater Basel and the Oper Frankfurt, to which he has been a guest since 2006. 

As a concert singer, he has toured with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, among others, and has performed in Tokyo, Osaka, Toulouse, Cairo, Athens, Barcelona, Valencia and Amsterdam. 

Numerous radio, television and CD recordings document his work. 

Over the past 15 years, teaching has taken up an increasing part of his professional life, which he performs alongside his work as an opera and concert singer with fun, curiosity, great interest and awareness of the responsibility towards his students. 

Since 2007 he has taught at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, where he was appointed to a professorship in 2017, and shares his experience in workshops and masterclasses (Kronenburg Classes, Conservatoire de Lille, Conservatorio Superior de Música da Coruña, International Opera Studio Frankfurt). 

In 2016 Wölfel returned to Oper Frankfurt in the new production of Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck” (director: Loy, conductor: Weigle) and again in 2019 in the revival. He also appeared in this production at Norske Opera Oslo in 2017. In September 2016 he made his debut at Welsh National Opera Cardiff as Antonio in André Tchaikovsky’s The Merchant of Venice (director: Warner). He also appeared with this production at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London in 2017. In autumn 2017 he made his debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in the world premiere of Aribert Reimann’s L’Invisible (director: Barkhatov, ML: Runnicles).  

www.martin-woelfel.de

Conti began his career as a flutist making his debut at the Salzburg Festival at the age of twenty with “I Solisti Veneti”. He has been considered internationally as one of the exponents of the flute of his generation, playing, recording and teaching classes for the most important international institutions.  

He decided to leave his concert activity in the mid-nineties to devote himself entirely to conducting. Student of Piero Bellugi, Marzio Conti soon began to be named titular director in several Italian orchestras and abroad, and since then he has been developing an activity that leads him constantly to direct prestigious orchestras and theatres around the world, varying from the symphonic repertoire to the opera ; he often collaborates with important and famous ballet companies.  

His recordings are numerous for some of the best international record labels. Active in the diffusion and promotion of various aspects of the cultured music, Marzio Conti has frequently been part of television and radio programmes, promoting, in addition to the traditional symphonic repertoire and the opera, contemporary music with participation in important international broadcasts.  

Since the beginning of his career as a director, Marzio Conti has always held positions as principal and artistic director in several Italian and foreign orchestras; his last position has been as titular director in Spain of Oviedo Filarmonia from 2011 to 2017, receiving great prizes including the prestigious Gold Medal Auditorium of Oviedo, considered the maximum artistic recognition of the city; among other things in recent years he has been several times Jury of the Arts in the Princess of Asturias Awards.  

In his career he has played, directed and recorded with some of the greatest soloists, singers, stage directors, dancers and choreographers of the international scene. Since 2014 he collaborates as guest conductor and professor with Jacob School of Music, Indiana University, Bloomington and he is principal guest conductor, since 2017, of AIMS Festival in Graz. 

Born in Manresa (Barcelona), Mireia Pintó was rewarded with the most important prizes in several singing competitions in Spain and in Italy. Her extensive repertoire, which ranges from baroque to contemporary music, includes opera, oratorio and Lied. She has performed as soloist with several instrumental chamber ensembles and several orchestras, with well-known conductors such as L. Maazel, G. Dudamel, P. Maag, R. Bonynge, H. Rilling, P. Goodwin, E. Ericson, A. Zedda, J.C. Malgoire, O. Dantone, M. Armiliato, R. Frizza, M. Benini, F. Haider, M. Mariotti, F.P. Decker, B. de Billy, S. Fujioka, S. Weigle, Y. Traub, A. Anissimov, G. Noseda, M. Guidarini, A. Allemandi, and many others. She takes part in several concert cycles, music festivals and opera performances in Italy, Russia, Holland, Germany, Greece, Andorra, France, Monaco, Japan, Czech Republic, Colombia and Spain, including outstanding performances in the main concert halls and opera theatres.  

In opera she performed: Giulio Cesare-Händel, La Cenerentola/Il Barbiere di Siviglia/ L´Italiana in Algeri/Il turco in Italia/Il viaggio a Reims (Rossini), Così fan tutte/II re pastore/Die Zauberflöte (Mozart), La serva padrona (Pergolesi), La Sonnambula/I Puritani/Norma (Bellini), Sly (Wolf-Ferrari), Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti), Andrea Chénier (Giordano), Otello (Verdi), Carmen (Bizet), Les contes d’Hoffmann (Offenbach), Roméo et Juliette/Faust (Gounod), Béatrice et Bénédict (Berlioz), Les Huguenots (Meyerbeer), Manon (Massenet), L´enfant et les sortilèges (Ravel), Evgeny Oneguin/Pikovaia Dama (Tchaikovsky), Katia Kabanova (Janacék), Parsifal/Die Walküre (Wagner), Ariadne auf Naxos/Elektra/Salomé (Strauss), Babel 46 (Montsalvatge), Tassarba (Morera), La vida breve (Falla), Iphigenia en Tracia (Nebra), La Partenope (Vinci), and others.  

She performed as soloist in: Weihnachts-Oratorium/Johannes Passion/Mass B minor/ Cantatas (Bach), Juditha Triumphans/Gloria/Moteten/Cantatas/Magnificat (Vivaldi), Stabat Mater (Pergolesi), Stabat Mater (Boccherini), Cantatas/The Messiah (Händel), Kantaten (Telemann), Jugendmesse/Cäcilienmesse/Scena di Berenice/Arianna a Naxos (Haydn), Requiem/Coronation Mass/Concert arias (Mozart), 9th Symphony (Beethoven), Petite messe solennelle/Stabat Mater/Giovanna d´Arco (Rossini), and many others.  

About Liederabende, since 1992 she has a duo with the pianist Vladislav Bronevetzky, carrying out a substantial performing activity that brought them to several countries, at festivals and concert cycles (including outstanding concert halls, like Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona), Rachmaninoff Hall (Moscow), Hamarikyu Asahi Hall (Tokyo), and many others). 

She has recorded the opera Sly by Wolf-Ferrari (next to J. Carreras), Il Viaggio a Reims (Rossini), Die Walküre (Wagner) and Babel 46 (Montsalvatge). She also recorded the albums One life to live, next to Manel Camp, with works by Weill and Gershwin, and Pushkin in music, next to Vladislav Bronevetzky.  

She is Professor in Singing and in Lied at the ESMuC (High Music School of Catalonia-Spain) and in many masterclasses in several countries. In 2011 she was rewarded by the Òmnium Cultural with the Bages Prize of Culture and in May 2017 she was rewarded with Regió 7 Prize of Culture. She is Manresa´s Ambassador 2022.