Irina Lungu

In the 2017/18 season she made her debut as Corinna in Gioachino Rossini's Il viaggio a Reims in a new production at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, reprised the title role of La Traviata at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, at the New National Theatre of Tokyo, in Seoul and at the Vienna State Opera, where she als performed Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. In Prague she interpreted the role of Donna Anna at the Estates Theatre, where the opera was first performed exactly 230 years before, celebrating the 230th anniversary of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's masterpiece conduced by Plácido Domingo. The performances were recorded and published on DVD/Blu-Ray by CMajor Entertainment. Other performances in 2017/18 include her role debut as Manon (Jules Massenet) in Bilbao and her Australian debut as Gilda in Rigoletto at the Sydney Opera House. Engagements in 2018/19 include her return to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Marguerite in Faust, her role debut as Elettra in Idomeneo at the Vienna State Opera, where she will also sing Norina in Don Pasquale, Lucia di Lammermoor in Tenerife, Marguerite in Faust at the Teatro Real in Madrid and La traviata in Hamburg.

On 12 October 2016, Lungu inaugurated the 2016/17 season of the Teatro Regio Turin as Mimì in a new production of La bohème. She subsequently sang Gilda in a new production of Rigoletto at the Teatro Comunale of Bologna, where she performed the title role of Lucia di Lammermoor in the same season and returned to the Vienna State Opera as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni. In the 2016/17 season Lungu also made her role debuts in three different Bel canto roles: As Giulietta in Vincenzo Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona, as Elvira in Bellini's I puritani in Modena, Piacenza and Reggio Emilia and in the title role of Anna Bolena in Avignon.

In 2013 Lungu made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Gilda in Giuseppe Verdi's Rigoletto opposite her fellow countryman baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky. Anthony Tommasini praised her performance in The New York Times, describing her as "a first class Gilda" with "bloom and warmth" in her voice. She returned to the Met later in January 2014 for five performances of Giacomo Puccini's La bohème, where she played the role of Musetta.

Born in the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic and raised in Russia, Lungu obtained diplomas in choral conducting, piano and singing at the State Conservatory of Voronež in Russia, where her voice teacher was Mikhail Podkopaev. She won several international competitions, including Operalia in 2004, the International Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition, and Voci Verdiane in Busseto, before being accepted in 2003 by the Accademia del Teatro alla Scala, Milan, where she was mentored by, among others, soprano Leyla Gencer.

In that same year (2003) Maestro Riccardo Muti selected Lungu as Anaï in Rossini's Moïse et Pharaon, the inaugural opera of the 2003/04 season of the Teatro alla Scala. That was the beginning of a fruitful collaboration between the soprano and the leading Italian opera company, where she has performed Adina in L'elisir d'amore, Maria Stuarda, Marguerite in Faust, Oksana in Cherevichki, Nannetta in Falstaff and the title role of Sancta Susanna. It was at La Scala that in 2007 she debuted the role of Violetta in La traviata under the musical direction of Lorin Maazel in Liliana Cavani's production, returning to sing the role in the same staging in 2008, and in 2013 in Dmitri Tcherniakov's new production conducted by Daniele Gatti. Violetta is her most performed role (over 130 times).

Irina Lungu (born 5 June 1980) is a Russian operatic soprano.