Within just a few years, Swiss soprano Regula Mühlemann has established herself as one of her generation’s most important voices. Equally at home on the operatic and concert stages, she is acclaimed by audiences and critics alike for her exceptionally beautiful timbre and sensitive performances. For her performances in the Salzburg Festival’s 2022 production of Die Zauberflote, The Telegraph hailed: “Regula Mühlemann is outstanding as a radiant Pamina.”
Within just a few years, Swiss soprano Regula Mühlemann has established herself as one of her generation’s most important voices. Equally at home on the operatic and concert stages, she is acclaimed by audiences and critics alike for her exceptionally beautiful timbre and sensitive performances. For her performances in the Salzburg Festival’s 2022 production of Die Zauberflote, The Telegraph hailed: “Regula Mühlemann is outstanding as a radiant Pamina.”
Mühlemann opens the 2024/25 season with Richard Strauss‘ Four Last Songs and Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 in Aarau with the argovia philharmonic. She appears as soloist in the same title with Mo. Roberto Gonzalez-Monjas and the Belgian National Orchestra, with the Marseille Philharmonic under the baton of Michele Spotti, as well as on tour with Theodor Currentzis and the Utopia Orchestra in Berlin, Hamburg, Stuttgart, and Rome. Mühlemann is also heard as Mater Gloriosa in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 “Symphony of a Thousand” at the Vienna Konzerthaus with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and its former chief conductor Philippe Jordan. The soprano embarks on tours with her frequent collaborator, the Basel Chamber Orchestra, to present a Bel canto program in Basel, Lucerne, Baden-Baden, La Chaux de Fonds and Düdingen. With the Balthasar Neumann Orchestra the soprano debuts Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with concerts in Hamburg, Madrid, Barcelona and Luxembourg, among others. Mühlemann also reunites with the CHAARTS Chamber Artists presenting their “Fairy Tales” program in Kempten and Brugg. She stars in a Christmas gala at the Stadtcasino Basel, joins the Lucerne Festival with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 and performs Bach’s Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen with NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester under the baton of Herbert Blomstedt. Her enchanting recitals can be heard at the Zürich Opera House and in Bern.
The 2024/25 operatic season commences at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo where she appears as Adina in the Lausanne Opera’s revival of L’elisir d’amore staged by Adriano Sinivia and conducted by Gianluca Capuano. Later in the season Mühlemann returns to the Staatsoper Berlin as Sophie in the revival of Der Rosenkavalier by André Heller, after which she reprises the role at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées with Henrik Nánási conducting and Krzystof Warlikowski staging his vision of Strauss’s masterpiece.
Among the highlights of her previous seasons were her role and house debut as Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), Adina (L’elisir d’amore) and Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) at the Vienna State Opera, Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin under the baton of Daniel Barenboim, Ilia (Idomeneo) in concert performances at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden under the musical direction of Thomas Hengelbrock, as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto at Theater Basel, Adele in Strauss’ Die Fledermaus at the Vienna State Opera and at the Teatro Maggio Musicale in Florence under the musical direction of Zubin Mehta, Juliette (Roméo et Juliette) at the Lucerne Theatre, Echo (Ariadne auf Naxos) at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, and Bellezza in Handel’s oratorio Il Trionfo del tempo e del disinganno alongside Cecilia Bartoli at the Salzburg Festival in summer 2021 and as Pamina in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte in summer 2022 as well as Marie in La fille du regiment at the Operá de Monte-Carlo.
On tour, the Swiss soprano’s captivating presence on the concert stage has been shared with thousands of audience members: with CHAARTS Chamber Artists, she performed across Switzerland, Austria, and Germany, presenting the program from her CD “Fairy Tales”. She enchanted the public with a program from her CD “Songs from Home” in Switzerland and at the Vienna Konzerthaus and embarked on tours with the Basel Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli.
Selected concert performances of recent seasons include the Mater gloriosa in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at Teatro alla Scala under the baton of Riccardo Chailly, at the Royal Albert Hall in London led by Vasily Petrenko and with Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Christian Thielemann. She performed Messiah with the Kammerorchester Basel, Mozart’s Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots with the Münchner Rundfunkorchester and Alessandro De Marchi and the soprano solo in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under the baton of Mariss Jansons at Salzburg’s Easter Festival. Additional repertoire includes Mozart’s Great Mass in c-minor, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Bach’s Passions as well as his Mass in b-minor, Haydn’s The Seasons and The Creation, Carmina Burana, Brahms’ Requiem. Regula Mühlemann works regularly with renowned conductors such as Franz Welser-Möst, Valery Gergiev, Nello Santi, Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Harding, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Pablo Heras-Casado, Ivor Bolton, Pinchas Steinberg, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Gianandrea Noseda and has been a guest of the most prestigious concert halls in Europe such as the Berlin Philharmonie, Alte Oper Frankfurt/Main, Casino Bern, Vienna Konzerthaus, Geneva, Madrid, New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and Dublin’s RIAM Concert Hall and others.
Regula Mühlemann is an exclusive recording artist with Sony Classical. Her debut album Mozart Arias (2016) was not only highly acclaimed by critics, but also awarded with the Deutsche Schallplattenkritik (Bestenliste). Her second album Cleopatra (2017) was also well received: “how captivatingly beautiful does the voice alloyed with gold and silver [sound]”; “the recital stands out, sweepingly said, due to the musical sequence of pictures as well as the encounter with a vocal and technical giftedness” (Jürgen Kesting/Fono Forum). In 2018, Regula Mühlemann was the winner of the OPUS KLASSIK “Newcomer of the Year” award. In autumn 2019 her third solo album Songs from Home was released, featuring a delightful selection of songs by Franz Schubert and Swiss composers. In 2020, she produced her fourth solo album, Mozart II, in collaboration with the Basel Chamber Orchestra and Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, for which she was awarded the OPUS KLASSIK for Solo Recording Voice (Opera) in 2021. For her fifth album Fairy Tales (2022) she worked out a special concept with a musical selection of “magical” pieces that take the listener into the world of fairies, elves and nymphs and in 2023 she has received OPUS KLASSIK award in the “Vocal Solo” category. In addition to her robust recording career, Mühlemann has also debuted on the silver screen in the feature film “Hunter’s Bride”, based on Weber’s Der Freischütz and in the film adaption of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice, as well as in Bernhard Weber’s documentary “The sound of the voice” from 2018.
Regula Mühlemann was born in Lucerne and studied at the Conservatory of Lucerne with Prof. Barbara Locher. Her first experiences on the opera stage took place at the Lucerne Theatre, followed by international debuts with Teatro La Fenice as Despina in Così fan tutte and at the 2012 Salzburg Festival in von Winter’s Das Labyrinth. Regula Mühlemann has been the recipient of numerous awards and prizes, and notably was a Finalist representing Switzerland at the 2015 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.
© CSAM, August 2024
