Young German soprano Lavinia Dames was  a student of the „Institute for the Early Advancement of the Musically Highly Gifted (IFF)“ at the University of Music Hanover under professor Gerhard Faulstich and helds a degree with distinction from the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna where she studied with Gabriele Lechner und Prof. Peter Edelmann. She attended master classes with Catarina Ligendza, Rudolf  Piernay, Edda Moser and  Renato Bruson. 

Lavinia’s awards include a prize at the Cantilena singing competition in Bayreuth in 2009 and the International Ferruccio Tagliavini Competition in 2012. In 2011, she won the first prize of the „Internationales Kärntner Sparkassen Musikstipendium“. In addition, she received the audience award.

 

She gained first stage experiences as Blumenmädchen and Knappe in Parsifal at  Wagner-Festival in Wels and as Daniel in Handel‘s Susanna at Schlosstheater Schönbrunn. It was there, where she performed sucessfully Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte for Childeren. 

 

Since the 2014/15 season, Lavinia Dames has been a member of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, where she has performed roles such as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, Pamina in The Magic Flute, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Norina in Don Pasquale, Musetta in La Bohème, Adele in Die Fledermaus and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. In 2019, she played Anabella in the world premiere of Anno Schreier’s opera Schade, dass sie eine Hure war.

 

Guest appearances have taken the young soprano to the Komische Oper Berlin as Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi and Pamina in The Magic Flute, to the Royal Operas of Stockholm and Copenhagen as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, to the Munich State Opera as Isotta in Die schweigsame Frau, as Grace in the world premiere of Gordon Kampe’s Dogville at the Aalto Theatre in Essen, and in the title role in Saariaho’s La passion de Simone at the Cologne Opera. In the summer of 2024, Lavinia Dames made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival as a Flower Maiden in Parsifal.

 

Concert engagements have taken Lavinia Dames to venues including the Konzerthaus Dortmund and the Musikverein in Vienna, as well as on tour to São Paulo and Lima, where she has conducted Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4, Schumann’s Paradise and the Peri, and Haydn’s The Creation.