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Julia Migenes

About this Artist

Born in New York, JULIA MIGENES (Harper Pitt / Ethel Rosenberg / Angel Antartica) spent her childhood performing in the opera house and tap dancing and singing in and around New York. As a teen, she was chosen to sing in Leonard Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, leading her to Broadway and the original cast of Fiddler on the Roof with Zero Mostel.

After deciding to leave musicals to sing opera, she left the United States and joined the repertory opera company of the Volksopera in Vienna. There, she sang lead roles in opera and operetta for the next seven years. After that, the Metropolitan Opera engaged her to sing lead roles in La bohème, Pagliacci, Mahagony, and to cover the incredibly difficult title role of Lulu. While she was performing the role of Salome in Geneva, Italian director Francesco Rosi cast her opposite Plácido Domingo in his film version of Carmen, and the soundtrack earned her a Grammy. Her acting abilities have brought various other film roles and television performances, including the very popular Top C’s and Tiaras in Britain in the ’80s.

Julia was part of the original cast of the opera version of Angels in America by Peter Eötvös, which was created in Paris in November 2004. The part sung by Migenes in Angels was composed specifically for her type of voice, which is equally low and high. In 2007, she directed her first opera, The Barber of Seville, which was nominated as one of the Best Operas in France.

To date, Migenes has recorded more than 20 albums, her latest entitled and dedicated to Hollywood Divas. Her extensive career has taken her from the U.S. to Asia and Europe (she sang in all the major opera houses, Tosca in Earls Court, and Manon at Covent Garden) and up to Jordan, where she sang for the King with Plácido Domingo in 2008.

She recently performed a new version of Pierrot Lunaire by Schoenberg (directed by Stephan Grögler), which had its world premiere in November 2012 in Switzerland.

Her many records – both classical and popular – concerts, films, and opera performances all contribute to a unique career as total actress-singer with equal success in popular and serious repertoire.