The Dutch mezzo-soprano Olivia Vermeulen has established herself as a versatile singer on an international level in recent years. She made her debut at the Berlin State Opera as Turno in Agostino Steffani’s L’Amor vien dal destino under the baton of René Jacobs, toured Europe with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and made a guest appearance with the London Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding in Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust at London’s Barbican Hall.

She has performed under Masaaki Suzuki and the Bach Collegium Japan in Handel’s Messiah, Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Mozart’s Mass in C minor (the latter has been released on CD by BIS Records and won a Gramophone Award). She also made her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker in the same work, this time under the direction of Daniel Harding.
Other highlights of her career include her role debut as Donna Elvira in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and as Dorabella in Così fan tutte, both with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra under the direction of René Jacobs. Under his direction, she also made her house debut at the Opéra national de Paris as Abel in Alessandro Scarlatti’s opera Il primo omicidio and subsequently appeared in this production at the Berlin State Opera. She also made her house debut at the Zurich Opera House as Cherubino in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro and returned to the Berlin State Opera for a new production of Vivaldi’s Il Giustino under René Jacobs.

As a sought-after concert soloist, Olivia Vermeulen was most recently heard with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in Beethoven’s IX Symphony under Masato Suzuki in Tokyo, Osaka and Yokohama. She has also performed with Jordi Savall and his Le Concert des Nations in Barcelona, Paris and at the Dresden Music Festival in Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis and has appeared under Philippe Herreweghe in Mozart’s Mass in C minor in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Olivia Vermeulen has worked with other renowned conductors such as Frans Brüggen, Alessandro De Marchi, Iván Fischer, Reinhard Goebel, Enoch zu Guttenberg, Marek Janowski, Konrad Junghänel, Andrea Marcon, Tomáš Netopil, Michael Schønwandt, Markus Stenz and Lothar Zagrosek in the course of her career to date. She has performed at festivals such as the Bregenz Festival, the Munich Opera Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, the Rheinvokal Festival, the Stuttgart Music Festival and the Handel Festival in Halle.

Another of Olivia Vermeulen’s focal points is song, not least as a continuation of her highly acclaimed solo album ‘Dirty Minds’ (Challenge Records), which won the German Record Critics’ Award of the Year and the Edison Classic Prize. In 2022, Challenge Records also released her second solo album – once again accompanied by Jan Philip Schulze – entitled ‘Hello Darkness’. In 2023/24 she is again engaged for numerous recitals, including at the Oxford International Song Festival and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam.

Concerts in the 2023/24 season include Beethoven’s IX Symphony with the Munich Symphony Orchestra, Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer and Bach’s Mass in B minor with the Boston Handel and Haydn Society under Masaaki Suzuki. She will be performing with the RIAS Chamber Choir and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin at the Rheingau Music Festival and with Jordi Savall in Beethoven’s IX Symphony at the Salzburg Festival.

Photo: © Felix Broede