Mezzo-soprano Laila Salome Fischer made her debut in 2021 under the baton of Jordi Savall at the Beethovenfest Bonn and the Berlioz Festival in France in Beethoven’s IX Symphony. This was followed by further concerts at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Teatro del Liceu Barcelona. She also appeared in Mozart’s Requiem under Jordi Savall with concerts at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, in Lyon, Paris and Barcelona, among others.
In 2022, she performed with L’arte del mondo and the Pera Ensemble at the Bayrischer Rundfunk’s Long Night of Early Music and again at the Handel Festival Halle in Timur & Bayezid, an opera pastiche by Mehmet Yesilcay with the Pera Ensemble, which was premiered in a shortened version at the digital Handel Day in 2020. Her debut CD ‘Talkin’about Barbara’ with works by the composer Barbara Strozzi was nominated several times for the Opus Klassik in 2022, including in the category Young Singer of the Year.
2019/2020 – 2021/22 she was a member of the Dresden State Operetta ensemble, where she sang roles such as Hänsel, Frau Reich, Orlofsky, Ganymede, Ciesca (Gianni Schicchi), 2nd Lady and Fragoletto. In 2022/23 she joined the ensemble of the Lübeck Theatre, where she will remain until 2023/24. In Lübeck, she has appeared as Cherubino, Suzuki, Orlofsky and Nancy (Albert Herring), among others. In 2023/24, she can be heard in Lübeck as Siébel in the premiere of Faust by Ch. Gounod and as Olga in the premiere of Eugene Onegin. In 2024/25 she will return to Lübeck as a guest for Handel’s Semele.
A solo concert programme was commissioned from her by the Halle and Göttingen Handel Festivals, which had its premiere in summer 2023 (based around Handel’s Agrippina). Her second solo CD ‘Scenes of Horror’ was released in February 2024 with the baroque ensemble Il Giratempo under the direction of Max Volkers. This new CD was listed by the BBC as one of the exciting new releases and has been played there several times recently. The CD was voted ‘Album of the Week’ by rbb Kulturradio. The magazine Opernglas called Laila Salome Fischer an ‘outstanding baroque voice’. Future concert engagements include her debut with Concerto Köln with a Bach/Scheibe programme in the Cologne Philharmonie and at the Herrenchiemsee Festival as well as her debut at the Vienna Musikverein under the direction of Jakob Lehmann with a Mozart/Handel programme and further concerts with Il Giratempo.
Laila Salome Fischer gained her first stage experience in the children’s studio of the Komische Oper Berlin before becoming a junior student at the Julius Stern Institute of the Berlin University of the Arts at the age of 11. At the age of 12, she took on the role of Clothilde in the Echo Klassik award-winning CD production of Henze’s opera Pollicino. While still at school, she was awarded the first national prize in the ‘Jugend Musiziert’ competition and won a scholarship from the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe (YMFE). After graduating from high school, she began her vocal studies at the Berlin University of the Arts. She was a scholarship holder of the German Music Competition and the Cusanuswerk Episcopal Study Foundation. While still a student, she received her first engagements at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Potsdam Sanssouci Music Festival, among others.
She has performed at the Bregenz Festival, in concerts at the Berlin State Opera and the Komische Oper Berlin, with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, in Tel Aviv, Paris and South America, at the Leipzig Bach Festival and the Handel Festivals in Halle and Göttingen with conductors such as Jacques Lacombe, Laurence Cummings, Thomas Guggeis and Sergio Azzolini.
Photo: © EKATERINA KRYLOVA