Janina Baechle
© Kurt Pinter
About
Janina Baechle studied musicology and history at Hamburg University. At the same time she also attended the classes of Gisela Litz (vocal studies) at the Music University of Hamburg. Today the mezzosoprano is working regularly with Brigitte Fassbaender.
After first appearances on stage in University opera productions, as Kabanicha (Janacek, Katja Kabanowa) or La zia principessa in Puccini’s Suor Angelica, Janina Baechle made her professional debut as Sharon Graham in Terrence McNally's Masterclass at the Hamburg Thalia Theatre in 1997. She became a member of the Braunschweig State Theatre in 1998 and performed there until march 2001 major mezzo roles such as Auntie in Peter Grimes, Frau Reich in Nicolai's The merry wives of Windsor, Erda as well as Fricka in Rheingold, Prince Orlofsky and Mrs. Begbick in The rise and fall of the town Mahagonny.
Already during that time she was invited as a guest singer and has since then appeared at the opera houses of Frankfurt, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the Dresden Semperopera , at Würzburg, Mannheim ,Saarbrücken, Kiel, Basel and the Liceu Barcelona .
From 2001 to 2004 she was a member of the Hannover State Opera, where she portrayed Amneris (Aida), the countess Geschwitz (Lulu), Fenena (Nabucco), Cornelia (Giulio Cesare) and Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier and performed in the Peter Konwitschny production of Nono´s Al gran sole carico dámore (also in the programme of the Edinburgh Festival in 2004).
Brigitte Fassbaender invited the mezzo to perform at the TLT Innsbruck the parts of Czipra (The gypsy baron), Azucena (Il Trovatore) and the Nurse in Strauss´s Frau ohne Schatten.
From 2004 to 2010 Janina Baechle was a member of the Vienna State Opera singing parts as Herodias (Salome), Brigitta ( Korngold's Tote Stadt), the Marquise Berkenfield (La fille du régiment), Mrs.Quickly (Falstaff), Eboli (Don Carlo), Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana), Ulrica (Un Ballo in maschera), both Frickas, Erdas and Waltraute in The Ring cycle, Brangaene (Tristan) as well as Ortrud in the 2005 production of Lohengrin, a performance for which she was awarded the Eberhard-Wächter-medal 2006 ( for Ortrud and Magdalena in Evangelimann at the Volksoper) . Still closely affiliated to the Vienna State Opera she will return there in the future as Fricka, Erda, Brangaene, Jezibaba and Waltraute.
Recent guesting invitations brought her to the Semperoper Dresden as Ortrud and Brangaene; as Mrs. Quickly and the Nurse (Frau ohne Schatten) to the Hamburgische Staatsoper, as Amneris to Stuttgart , as Fricka (Walküre) to San Francisco, as Mrs Quickly to Toulouse, as Jezibaba and Ortrud to Munich, as Bruno Mantovanis Anna Akhmatova (Akhmatova World Premiere) to Paris Bastille Opera and as Brangaene and Gaea to Barcelona. More recently, she sang the mother in Hänsel und Gretel in Munich and Brangaene in Paris and Vienna.
The mezzosoprano has worked among others with directors Martin Kusej, Brigitte Fassbaender, Andreas Homoki, Sven-Eric Bechtholf, Nicolas Joel, David Pountney and Peter Konwitschny and with conductors Seiji Ozawa, Semyon Bychkov, Franz Welser-Möst, Jonathan Nott, Ulf Schirmer, Mariss Jansons, Paolo Carignani, Pinchas Steinberg, Christian Thielemann, Kent Nagano, Donald Runnicles, Leif Segerstam, and Simone Young.
In may 2007 she gave her concert debut with the Vienna Philharmonic as the alto soloist in Mahler’s Symphony No 2, in which she also had her US debut with the New York Philharmonic and Gilbert Kaplan in New York in Decembre 2008 ...a symphony she also performed in 2012 in Toulouse (concert webcast on medici.tv).
In her concert and recital appearances she is focusing on the repertoire of the 19th and 20th century and Gustav Mahler has become a central figure. In addition to the above mentioned Second symphony she has performed all Knaben Wunderhorn songs at the Toblach Mahler weeks, Das Lied von der Erde with Kyrill Petrenko and Kent Nagano, Kindertotenlieder with Emmanuel Plasson, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen at the Vienna Musikverein with Helmut Deutsch and Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Jonathan Nott and Mariss Jansons. She appeared in recital in Bremen, Hannover, Klagenfurt, Graz, Vienna, at the Eppan Liedsommer and The Strauss Tage Garmisch and is invited to the Schleswig Holstein Musikfestival, the Hugo-Wolf Akademie Stuttgart and the Musée d´Orsay Paris.
Her first disc, Chansons Grises, with songs by Hahn, Milhaud, Boulanger and Zemlinsky accompanied by Charles Spencer, appeared in May 2008, a second with songs by Franz Liszt appeared in January 2010, both on Marsyas.