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INTRODUCTION
Alexandra Yangel’s route into opera began not with voice, but violin. After two seasons with the Wiener Staatsoper, her career expanded rapidly with debuts across Europe and collaborations with conductors such as Vladimir Jurowski and Simone Young. A semi-finalist at Operalia 2023, she then paused her career to become a mother — an experience that, she says, strengthened rather than interrupted her artistry. Now back on stage, Alexandra speaks with clarity about balance, identity, and reclaiming one’s own narrative in opera.
BIOGRAPHY
After two years as a member of the Vienna State Opera ensemble, Alexandra Yangel made her German stage debut in 2019 as Charlotte (Werther) at Theater Aachen. In the same year she appeared in Italy for the first time, singing Waltraute (Die Walküre) at Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari, and she performed Nicklausse (Les contes d’Hoffmann) for Operklosterneuburg and Zweite Dame (Die Zauberflöte) at the Verbier Festival.
In the 2022/23 season, Alexandra made her Munich debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper as Sonya (War and Peace) with Maestro Vladimir Jurowski and Dmitri Tcherniakov. In April 2023 she debuted at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf as Lucienne (Die tote Stadt), and in July she sang Marguerite (La damnation de Faust) at the Domstufen-Festspiele in Erfurt. In the 2023/24 season she returned to the Deutsche Oper am Rhein as Hänsel (Hänsel und Gretel), Diana (Orphée aux Enfers), and Blumenmädchen, and appeared there in several concerts. Alexandra became a semi-finalist at Operalia 2023.
Due to her pregnancy, she took a professional break during the 2024/25 season. At the beginning of the 2025 season she returned to Theater Erfurt, making her role debut as Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni).
Earlier in her career, during the 2021/22 season, she made debuts at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin and the Grand Théâtre de Genève, and appeared in concerts in Hamburg, Hohenems, Belgrade, Dortmund, and Budapest.
Before embarking on her vocal career, Alexandra was an accomplished violinist. Born in Moscow, she began studying violin at the age of five with Galina Turchaninova, and graduated with honours from the Central Music School of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory under Irina Bochkova. At nineteen she began vocal studies with Irina Dolzhenko, a soloist at the Bolshoi Theatre, and later continued at the Gnesin Academy of Music.
At a competition in Vienna in 2016, her voice was noticed by the director of the Vienna State Opera. She was invited to audition and subsequently joined the ensemble in 2017. While in Vienna she studied with Kammersängerin Elena Filipova, and completed both her bachelor’s degree in solo singing (2017) and her master’s degree in song and oratorio (2020) at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, both with distinction.
In concert she has performed with orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, the Prague Philharmonic, and Chamber Orchestra Arpeggione, and has appeared at festivals including the Verbier Festival, Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg, Arpeggione Hohenems, and the Menuhin Festival Gstaad. She has worked with conductors including Vladimir Jurowski, Simone Young, Axel Kober, Maxime Pascal, Vitali Alekseenok, Peter Eötvös, Graeme Jenkins, Susanna Mälkki, and Stanislav Kochanovsky.
She has participated in masterclasses with Evgeny Nesterenko, Vesselina Kasarova, Thomas Quasthoff, Thomas Hampson, Barbara Frittoli, Anatoly Goussev, Silvana Bartoli, and Stephan Rügamer. Ms. Yangel won the Grand Prix at the 1st Vienna International Music Competition in 2019 and the International Singing Competition at Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg in 2016.
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INTERVIEW
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Alice Lechner comes from a music-loving family. Her first encounter with the opera universe was at the tender age of six. The grandeur of the stage productions and costumes, the backstage chatter, and last, but definitely not least, the music left her in awe, beginning with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The overall feeling that opera awakens in anyone who gets a glimpse into this part of artistic eternity, that each and every day passes the test of time, was what drew her to stay and be a part of this world. The Opera House of Brașov became her second home, and the people who worked there were her second family.
Since then, Alice has devoted her spare time to maximising her musical knowledge through instrumental studies, studying both piano and violin for a short time. In the following years, her number one passion stepped out of the limelight and graciously gave way to Law Studies.
Since 2018 she has been studying Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.
Her passion for opera, even if it is no longer her top professional priority in terms of career, it has most definitely become her priority during her free time. Wanting to experience the best of both worlds and extend her musical horizons, she regularly attends opera performances throughout Romania and abroad.
With OPERA Charm Magazine, Alice aims to nurture her creative side to help it flourish and bloom and to discover, alongside the magazine’s readers, the fascinatingly complex world of opera.
Currently, she is an LL.M. in Business Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.
Oana Zamfir is a second year MA student at the “George Enescu” National University of Arts, at the Department of Musicology.
She studied violin for 12 years at the “Stefan Luchian” High School of Art in Botosani, later focusing on the theoretical aspects of music. In 2019 she completed her bachelor studies in Musicology as a student of the National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” in Cluj-Napoca. Her research during 2018-2019 brought to the forefront elements of the archaic ritual within works of composers who activated during the communist period, giving her the opportunity to start a research internship at the “Carl von Ossietzky” University in Germany. In this context, she recorded conversations with members of the Sophie Drinker Institute in Bremen, and had access to documents directly from the Myriam Marbé archive.
Since 2019 she has been a teacher of Music Education and Theoretical Music Studies, making full use of interactive methods in the musical training of students and working, at the same time, with the children’s choir founded in the first year of her activity.
Her interests include pursuing a degree in interior design in 2020.
Alexandru Suciu inherited his passion for art growing up in a family of several generations of musicians. He began his musical studies at the “Augustin Bena” School of Music in Cluj, where he studied piano and guitar. Even though his main study direction was philological, his passion for music prevailed. He began his academical journey at the Faculty of Letters of the “Babeș-Bolyai” University, studying Comparative literature and English. He continued by studying Opera Singing at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy. He also graduated the Musical Education section, followed by Artistic Directing at the Musical Performing Arts department.
His multidisciplinary education opened the doors towards research, which is seen both through his participation in national and international conferences and symposia, such as the Salzburg Easter School PhD-forum, organized by the Salzburg Universität or the Silesian Meeting of Young Scholars, organized by the Institute of English at the University of Silesia, as well as the collaboration with Opera Charm Magazine.
During his student years, he won several prizes, including the Grand Prize at the “Paul Constantinescu” National Musical Interpretation Competition, the Romanian Composers and Musicologists’ Union Prize at the same competition, the First Prize and the Schubert Prize at the “Ada Ulubeanu” Competition.
He further developed his artistic skills by specializing in courses and masterclasses held by personalities such as Vittorio Terranova, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Marian Pop, Ines Salazar, Riccardo Zanellato, Paolo Bosisio, Valentina Farcaș and Manuel Lange in contexts such as the Internationale Sommerakademie für Operngesang Deutschlandsberg, Corso Internazionale di Canto Lirico I.M.C. Licata or the Europäische Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst Montepulciano. Besides his activity on-stage, he currently teaches Opera Singing Didactics, and Pedagogical Practice within the Department for Teacher Education and Training at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy.
Cristina is a 24 year-old Romanian soprano & a student at the National University of Music Bucharest, where she pursues the MA program in Vocal Performance.
She made her debut in Pamina from “Die Zauberflöte” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at only 19 years old at the Bucharest National Opera House, as a member of the Ludovic Spiess Experimental Opera Studio. Over the years she made her debut in roles such as Contessa d’Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Mimì & Musetta (La Bohème), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte) in her university’s opera productions.
Her passion and experience extends in the field of choral music, too.
She has been part of our dream team since the fall of 2021. For a good period of time she took care of OPERA Charm’s social media and took you on the monthly journey through the history of opera through our Legends rubric – and a few times through the Theaters around the World rubric.
Her little soul rubric – from 2021 to present – is definitely the Conductors of the Future, where, every month, she gives you the chance to meet a young star of the world of conducting and, of course, to find out what’s the most charming feature of opera in these artists’ views.
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