Yukiko Kinjo

Biography

The Japanese soprano Yukiko Kinjo is a soloist of the National Theatre in Prague, where she made her debut in 2009 as Zerlina in Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Estates Theatre and as Papagena in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the State Opera.

In 2000, she completed her studies at the Ryukyu University, and in 2002, she received a scholarship from the Japanese government to study voice in Italy, where she honed her skills at the Milan Music Academy and, from 2003, also at the Conservatorio di Musica Arrigo Boito in Parma, with Lucetta Bizzi and Eugenio Furlotti. In the summer of 2009, she attended the summer voice masterclasses under Mirella Freni in Italy. In 2010, she graduated from the Prague Conservatory. Her repertoire includes Mozart's Pamina and Papagena (Die Zauberflöte), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Despina (Così fan tutte) and Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Verdi's Gilda (Rigoletto) and Oscar (Un ballo in maschera), Adina (Donizetti: L’elisir d‘amore), Micaela and Frasquita (Bizet: Carmen), Liu (Puccini: Turandot), Sophie (Massenet: Werther), Gretel (Humperdinck: Hänsel and Gretel), Clorinda (Rossini: La Cenerentola), Amore (Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice), and the Czech roles of the First Wood Nymph (Dvořák: Rusalka) and Lidka (Smetana: The Two Widows), etc.

In 2007 and 2008, at the International Antonín Dvořák Vocal Competition in Karlovy Vary she won two third prizes in the Opera category, a special Mozart Opera prize, the Antonín Dvořák Society Prize for best performance of a Dvořák aria and the prizes of the State Opera Prague and the F. X. Šalda Theatre in Liberec for guest appearances in their productions. Her concert repertoire includes Vivaldi's Gloria, Handel's Messiah, Mozart's Requiem, Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, Dvořák's Stabat Mater and Te Deum, Poulenc's Stabat Mater, Mendelssohn's Lobgesang, Martinů’s The Bouquet, Trojan’s Missa solemnis, etc.

Photo: Ilona Sochorová