Praised for her “rich and capacious mezzo soprano” (San Francisco Chronicle), Cuban-American singer Alexandra Urquiola is quickly gaining notoriety on the international stage.
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Urquiola returned to the Teatro Real this season, singing Segunda Doncella and covering Néris in their production of Cherubini’s Médée. Immediately after, she made her debut as Mercédès in Staatsoper Stuttgart’s production of Carmen.
Later this season, Alexandra can be seen in the title role of Carmen at Theater Aachen, as well as their production of Il viaggio a Reims as Marchesa Melibea. She will tour Ireland, England, and Switzerland with Irish National Opera’s production of L’Olimpiade as Aristea.
In the 22/23 Season, Urquiola premiered a scenic adaption of Bach’s Johannespassion as the Alt Solistin at Staatsoper Stuttgart. In the same season, she performed as the Küchenjunge (Rusalka), Tisbe (la Cenerentola), and Frau Holle (Holle) also with Staatsoper Stuttgart.
Urquiola made her debut at the Teatro Real in Madrid and the Peralada Festival with the opera Hadrian, performing the role of Plotina. She previously workshopped this role with Rufus Wainwright at the Aspen Music Festival.
In 2019, Urquiola joined the Opernstudio at Staatsoper Stuttgart, where she was seen as Bradamante (Alcina), Dinah (Trouble in Tahiti), Dritte Dame (Die Zauberflöte), L’enfant (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