Arantxa Armentia Soprano

Arantxa Armentia was born in Madrid into a Basque family. She studied piano and vocals at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música with Julián López Gimeno Pedro Lavirgen. With a grant from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation she was then able to continue her studies at the Hochschule Karlsruhe with the American soprano Maria Venuti.

Arantxa Armentia attended master classes with Sena Jurinac, Teresa Berganza, Alfredo Kraus, Gerard Souzay, Hilde Zadek, Mitsuko Shirai and Hartmut Höll, and won numerous awards at singing contests as prestigious as the "Lucrecia Arana" in Madrid, the "Alfredo Kraus" in Las Palmas and the "Francesco Viñas" in Barcelona.

In 1998/99 she made her debut as the 4th maid/Elektra at the Teatro Real Madrid. During the same season there she also sang Autonoe in Hans Werner Henze's Les Bassarides. Since then she has been singing regularly in her home town numerous roles like Lisa|La Sonnanbula, conducted by Richard Bonynge and Dulcinea in the world premiere of Cristobal Halffter's Don Quixote. Her role as Simina in the world premiere of La Señorita Cristina by Luis de Pablo brought her the recognition of both the audience and the critics. Again in Madrid she performed in Henzes's L'Upupa.

Arantxa Armentia has performed among other roles Marzelline|Fidelio, Clorinda|La Cenerentola, Adina|L'Elisir d'amore, Annina|A Night in Venice, Antonia|Les Contes d'Hoffmann and notably Mimi|La Bohème. She has worked with famous conductors such as José Ramón Encinar, García Navarro, Arturo Tamayo, Odón Alonso, Jordi Casas, Walter Weller, Michel Plasson, Enoch zu Guttenberg and Rolf Beck and with directors such as Francisco Nieva, Gerd Heinz, Mauro Avogadro, Herbert Wernicke, Gottfried Pilz, Matthias Davids and Blankenship.

Starting in the 1999/2000 season, she was a member of the Staatstheater Linz and performed Antonia, Mimi, Micaela, Marguerite, Pamina, Rusalka, Fiordiligi and Nedda. As a recitalist and oratorio singer she has performed in Germany, Austria, Italy, France, Spain and Switzerland. During the summer of 2002 she sang Maria in the Greek premiere of Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story in the Odeon of Herodes Atticus at the Hellenic Festival and also at the Ludwigsburg Festival.

Since 2006/07 she has been a member of the State Opera Hanover where she performed e.g. Fata Morgana|Die Liebe zu den drei Orangen, Mimì, Micaëla|Carmen, Antonia, Contessa|Le nozze di Figaro, Liù|Turandot, Freia|Das Rheingold and Agaue|Die Bassariden. In 2011 her recent engagements in Hannover were, amongst others, as Alice Ford|Falstaff, Contessa, Freia, Helmwige|Die Walküre, and she made her role debut as Desdemona|Otello.

In Germany she sang with great success at many important places, for example Oper Frankfurt, Mannheim and Weimar National Theatre, Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, Staatstheater Nürnberg, Staatstheater Kasssel, operas of Hamburg, Stuttgart and - in Austria - Wien. In April 2011 she jumped in at Bremen theatre with great success to sing Elettra|Idomeneo.

At State Opera Hanover, Armentia will perform in 2011-12 season, amongst others: Giorgetta|Il trittico in a new production by Sebastian Baumgarten, Gutrune|Götterdämmerung, Helmwige, Freia, Contessa, Alice Ford and Mimì; and she will sing in Poulenc's La voix humaine at a very special place: the Cumberlandsche Galerie in Hanover.