Praised for her “rich and capacious mezzo soprano” (San Francisco Chronicle), Cuban-American singer Alexandra Urquiola is quickly gaining notoriety on the international stage.
ABOUT
This season, Alexandra returns to Mercédès in Carmen at Deutsche Oper am Rhein, appears in a Verdi Gala at the Philharmonie Berlin, debuted Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro at Ópera de Oviedo, reprised the role of the Küchenjunge in Rusalka at Staatsoper Stuttgart, and performed as the title role in Holle! at Deutsche Oper am Rhein.
Last season, she made her title role debut as Carmen at Theater Aachen, returned to the same stage as Marchesa Melibea in Il viaggio a Reims, and toured internationally as Aristea in L’Olimpiade with Irish National Opera and the Irish Baroque Orchestra, including performances at the Royal Opera House. She returned to Teatro Real, singing Segunda Doncella and covering Néris in Cherubini’s Médée. Immediately after, she made her debut as Mercédès in Carmen at Staatsoper Stuttgart. She also sang as the mezzo-soloist in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at the Berliner Philharmonie.
In the 2022/23 season, she premiered a staged adaptation of Bach’s Johannespassion as the Alt Solistin at Staatsoper Stuttgart, and was also seen there as Tisbe (La Cenerentola), Küchenjunge (Rusalka), and Frau Holle (Holle!).
She made her debut at Teatro Real and the Peralada Festival as Plotina in Rufus Wainwright’s Hadrian, a role she originally workshopped with the composer at the Aspen Music Festival.
A former member of the Opernstudio at Staatsoper Stuttgart, Alexandra performed a wide range of roles including Bradamante (Alcina), Dinah (Trouble in Tahiti), Dritte Dame (Die Zauberflöte), Das Kind (L’enfant et les sortilèges/Die verzauberte Welt), Fjodor (Boris Godunov), Die Aktivistin (Secondhand Zeit), Annina (La traviata), Emmeline (King Arthur), and Linetta (Die Liebe zu drei Orangen).
In the concert field, her repertoire includes works such as Handel’s Messiah, Elgar’s Sea Pictures, Ted Hearne’s Katrina Ballads, and John Adams’ Grand Pianola Music. Special highlights include her collaboration with the renowned pianist Steven Blier for the world premiere of Clarice Assad's Elementos song cycle at the New York Festival of Song.
She competed in prestigious international competitions such as Belvedere, Concurs Tenor Viñas and Neue Stimmen, among others, always reaching the semifinals.
Alexandra participated in several young artist programs, including the San Francisco Opera Center’s Merola Opera Program, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, and the Aspen Opera Center. She graduated from Northwestern University and received her masters from the Yale School of Music.
“As Dinah, Alexandra Urquiola impressed with her multifaceted mezzo-soprano. She has been a member of the Stuttgart Opera Studio since last season and, with this sophisticated interpretation, also set the atmosphere.”
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What people are saying
Als Dinah begeisterte Alexandra Urquiola mit ihrem facettenreichen Mezzosopran. Sie ist seit der vergangenen Spielzeit Mitglied des Stuttgarter Opernstudios und setzte mit dieser ausgefeilten Interpretation ebenfalls eine markante singdarstellerische Duftmarke
— J.M. Weineke for Das Opernglas, 2020
Urquiola's warm, ingratiating mezzo-soprano brought the vivid texts to life, with clear diction and soaring phrasing.
— Cadenza, 2019
…Alexandra Urquiola als Dinah zeigen bei der Aufführung starke Bühnenpräsenz. Vor allem bei der grotesken Arie „Trouble in Tahiti“ kann sich Alexandra Urquiola mit tragfähigen Kantilenen profilieren
— Online Merker, 2020
Mezzo-soprano Alexandra Urquiola was moving in her urgent and sensitive "I was standing in a garden," from "Trouble in Tahiti" by Leonard Bernstein.
— Bay Area Reporter, 2018
Alexandra Urquiola deployed her rich and capacious mezzo-soprano winningly but all too briefly as the brothel keeper Mother Goose...
— San Francisco Chronicle, 2018
Alexandra Urquiola’s liquid mezzo and striking performance of “Water—Maré de Água Viva (A Tide of Living Water)” fell at the sublime confluence of sorrow and peace.
— I Care if You Listen, 2019
Below the stage, the S.F. Opera Orchestra, conducted by Nashville Opera’s Dean Williamson, shifted smoothly from one genre of music to another, doing equal justice to Rossini (after a somewhat labored start, at the orchestra’s return from summer vacation), Donizetti, Richard Strauss, and an especially poignant Bernstein — accompanying Alexandra Urquiola’s haunting rendition of “I was standing in a garden” from Trouble in Tahiti.
— San Francisco Classical Voice, 2018
Quick swerves between styles and centuries are a matter of course at a Merola finale. No sooner had the grinning tenor WooYoung Yoon celebrated the high C’s he’d just hit in “Ah, mes amis!” from Donizetti’s “La fille du régiment” than mezzo Alexandra Urquiola was spilling out her poignant if somewhat occluded garden dream to her psychiatrist in Bernstein’s “Trouble in Tahiti.”
— San Francisco Chronicle, 2018