Soprano Elbenita Kajtazi comes from Kosovo. She studied at the Music Academy in Mitrovica and the University of Prishtina and is a prizewinner of several international competitions. In 2014, she won first prize at the Spiros Argiris Competition of the Sarzana Opera Festival in Italy and in 2015 first prize at the Riccardo Zandonai Vocal Competition. From 2014 to 2016, she sang roles at the Deutsche Oper Berlin such as Frasquita (Carmen), Gianetta (L’elisir d’amore), Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Annina (La traviata), Shepherd (Tannhäuser), and Sandman/Tom Thumb (Hänsel und Gretel). From the 2016/17 season, she was a member of the ensemble at the Aalto Theatre in Essen, and since the 2018/19 season she has been part of the ensemble at the Hamburg State Opera. Her repertoire since then has included Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel), Musetta (La bohème), Liù (Turandot), Violetta (La traviata), Adele (Die Fledermaus), Nannetta (Falstaff), Manon, Micaëla (Carmen), Susanna and Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro), and Marzelline (Fidelio). She has worked with conductors such as Tomáš Netopil, Friedrich Haider, Riccardo Minasi, Donald Runnicles, Kent Nagano, and Nicholas Carter. In concert, she has performed Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony at the Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle Hamburg, works by Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, and Scènes de la vie de bohème at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. In the current season, she will appear as Antonia (Les contes d’Hoffmann) and Nannetta at the Hamburg State Opera, as Liù at the Semperoper Dresden, and as Mimì (La bohème) at the Vienna State Opera.

Siena Licht Miller, German-American mezzo-soprano, studied voice at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. She completed her training with programs at Opera Philadelphia, the Santa Fe Opera, the Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and the Aspen Music Festival. She is a scholarship holder of the Bagby Foundation and a prizewinner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, the Marilyn Horne Rubin Foundation, and the Gerda Lissner Foundation.

Highlights of her career so far include role debuts as Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Second Lady in Die Zauberflöte, and one of the two solo roles in the world premiere of Denis and Katya by Philip Venables at Opera Philadelphia. At the Aspen Opera Center, she sang the title role in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortilèges under the baton of Robert Spano.

She also regularly dedicates herself to song repertoire. She appeared in The Song Continues recital series at Carnegie Hall in honor of her mentor Marilyn Horne, and toured the United States with a recital alongside pianist Kevin Murphy.

In the 2020/21 season, she was a member of the International Opera Studio in Zurich, where she performed in Maria Stuarda, Simon Boccanegra, Viva la mamma, Salome, Odyssee, in the ballet Monteverdi, in L’italiana in Algeri, and as Flosshilde in Das Rheingold. Since the 2022/23 season, she has been a member of the ensemble at Zurich Opera House, where she recently appeared in Barkouf, Salome, Anna Karenina, Lakmé, La rondine, Die Walküre, and Götterdämmerung.

She also sang the title role in Handel’s Serse at Theater Winterthur.

Yannick Debus studied voice at the Lübeck University of Music, the Basel Music Academy, and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. Alongside his vocal studies, he studied music theory and ear training in Lübeck. During his studies, he sang at the theaters in Kiel and Lübeck, including the lead role of the Poet in L’impresario in angustie (Cimarosa). As part of the Junge Oper Schloss Weikersheim, he appeared in the summer of 2017 in the role of the Father in Humperdinck’s fairy-tale opera Hänsel und Gretel. In the summer of 2018, he sang the role of Guglielmo in Così fan tutte at the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg. He was seen at the Theater Basel as the Emperor Overall in Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis, as Figaro in Milhaud’s La mère coupable, and at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music as Emireno in Handel’s Ottone, re di Germania. From 2020 to 2022, he was a member of the International Opera Studio in Zurich, where he appeared as Kilian in Der Freischütz, as Speaker and 2nd Priest in Die Zauberflöte, as Hermann in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, as Thierry in Dialogues des Carmélites, and as Pieter in Girl with a Pearl Earring. He has a close collaboration with René Jacobs, with whom he appeared as Orpheus in Telemann’s opera of the same name in Basel, and in 2022 as Apollo in Handel’s Apollo e Dafne, as Kilian and Ottokar on the CD release tour of Der Freischütz, and in Israel in Egypt. In 2022, he sang Haydn’s Creation at the Berlin Konzerthaus and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at the Berlin Philharmonic.

Rebeca Olvera is from Mexico and studied at the Conservatorio Nacional de Música in Mexico City. From 2005 to 2007, she was a member of the International Opera Studio at the Zurich Opera House. Afterwards, she became a permanent ensemble member and performed roles such as Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Norina (Don Pasquale), Berenice (L’occasione fa il ladro), Giulia (La scala di seta), Rosina (Paisiello’s Il barbiere di Siviglia), Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Madame Herz (Der Schauspieldirektor), Dorinda (Orlando), Isolier (Le comte Ory), Adalgisa (Norma), and Zaida (Il turco in Italia). She worked with conductors including Ralf Weikert, Vladimir Fedoseyev, William Christie, Marc Minkowski, Nello Santi, Adam Fischer, Fabio Luisi, Diego Fasolis, Franz Welser-Möst, Emmanuelle Haïm, and Alessandro De Marchi. She gave concerts with José Carreras in South America and Europe (Carreras Gala 2007 on ARD) and with Plácido Domingo in Mexico. In 2016, she sang Adalgisa in Norma alongside Cecilia Bartoli at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, at the Edinburgh Festival, and at the Baden-Baden Festival House. In Zurich, she appeared as Despina, Musetta, Frasquita (Carmen), Mi (Das Land des Lächelns), Zaida (Il turco in Italia), Komtesse Stasi (Die Csárdásfürstin), Waldvöglein (Siegfried), and Contessa di Folleville (Il viaggio a Reims) — the latter role also performed at the Royal Danish Opera. She performed Isolier at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo and Clorinda (La Cenerentola) at the Vienna State Opera. Additionally, she appeared as Berta (Il barbiere di Siviglia) and in the gala concert Carmencita & Friends at the Salzburg Festival.

Luca Pisaroni, raised in Busseto, Italy, studied at the Verdi Conservatory in Milan. Since his debut at the Salzburg Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic and Nikolaus Harnoncourt, he has performed on numerous major opera and concert stages as well as at renowned festivals worldwide, including the opera houses of Vienna, San Francisco, New York, Madrid, Berlin, Milan, and Paris, the Salzburg, Glyndebourne, and Aix-en-Provence festivals, as well as the Wiener Musikverein, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall in New York, and Wigmore Hall in London. His repertoire includes roles such as Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), Guglielmo (Così fan tutte), Giorgio (I Puritani), Papageno (Die Zauberflöte), Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), Méphistophélès (La Damnation de Faust), Maometto (Maometto II), and Conte Rodolfo (La sonnambula). Luca Pisaroni tours worldwide with the major roles of his fach: at Teatro Real Madrid as Méphistophélès (Faust), at the Liceu Barcelona as Mustafà (L’italiana in Algeri), and at Houston Grand Opera as Lorenzo da Ponte in the world premiere of O’Regan’s The Phoenix. At the Metropolitan Opera, he made his debut in the title role of Don Giovanni and at the Royal Opera House London as Escamillo (Carmen). Recent engagements include Leporello (Don Giovanni) at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, Don Rodrigue in Dalbavie’s world premiere Le Soulier de Satin at the Opéra National de Paris, Il Re di Scozia (Ariodante) at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and most recently the Four Villains (Les Contes d’Hoffmann) at the Hamburg State Opera.

Francesco Guglielmino was born in Solothurn. At the age of 21, he moved to Zurich, where he focused on his dance training and appeared in the musicals Fame and Hair. From Zurich, he went to New York, where he deepened his acting skills and took dance classes at the Alvin Ailey American Theater School and the Broadway Dance Center. He also worked as a model for fashion shows and advertising. At the Acting Studio and Stella Adler Acting School, he attended acting classes and appeared as an actor in various productions at the Metropolitan Opera, such as Turandot, Madama Butterfly, La bohème, and Aida. After moving to Los Angeles, he appeared in numerous television productions and TV shows, including CSI: Miami, CSI: New York, Law and Order, The View, and The Ellen Show. Additionally, he played various roles in films and series such as The Pink Panther, Sex and the City, Edgar, Death in Love, and Till Death. Since 2018, Francesco Guglielmino has been living again in Solothurn. At the Zurich Opera House, he has been seen in Così fan tutte, Il trovatore, Dialogues des Carmélites, and Roberto Devereux.

Evgeny Kulagin, born in 1981, graduated from the Academy of Arts and Culture in his hometown Chelyabinsk. In 2002, together with Ivan Estegneyev, he founded the contemporary dance company “Dialogue Dance” in Kostroma, which soon after its founding developed into an important center for contemporary Russian dance. The company’s performances were awarded the prestigious “Golden Mask” three times. Kulagin and his company have collaborated with major companies and choreographers from Russia, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, and Austria. Evgeny Kulagin is also active as a choreographer and director in spoken theater and film. From 2014, he worked as a director and choreographer at the Moscow Gogol Center under the leadership of Kirill Serebrennikov. There, he directed and choreographed Shakespeare (2017) and Two Rooms (2018). Together with Kirill Serebrennikov, he has developed numerous productions in both spoken theater and opera. In 2018, they jointly produced the film Leto (Summer), which was shown that same year at the Cannes Film Festival and the Zurich Film Festival. Kulagin staged Kirill Serebrennikov’s productions in Zurich (Così fan tutte), at the Bavarian State Opera (The Nose), and at the Vienna State Opera (Parsifal), while Serebrennikov was under house arrest in Moscow. Most recently, he worked with Serebrennikov on productions including Der Freischütz (Amsterdam), Le nozze di Figaro (Komische Oper Berlin), and Don Carlo (Vienna). At the Hamburg Thalia Theater, Kulagin directed the evening Apocalypse Tomorrow.