Emőke Baráth

Hungarian soprano Emőke Baráth began her musical education studying the piano and the harp. She began singing at the age of 18 with Professor Julia Paszthy at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest. She also studied at the Luigi Cherubini Conservatory in Florence.

In 2009, she received Third Prize at the 44th Antonín  Dvořák International Competition (Czech Republic). In 2011, she won the First Prize and the People’s Choice award at the Second International Singing Competition for Baroque Opera in Innsbruck (Austria). The same year, she won the Grand Prix of Verbier Festival Academy (Switzerland).

She has sung in several masterclasses, notably with Barbara Bonney, Kiri Te Kanawa, Sylvia Sass, Laszlo Polgar, Nancy Argenta, Deborah York and Masaaki Suzuki.

Early on in her career, she was invited to perform as soloist at festivals and venues as renowned as the Palace of Arts and the Budapest State Opera in Hungary, the Theater an der Wien, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, the Opéra Royal de Versailles and the Verbier Festival in Switzerland; the Nikolaisaal in Potsdam, the Braunschweig Staatstheater, and the Brandeburger Theatre in Germany, and the Concert Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, Russia.

The late Alan Curtis was one of the first conductors to discover her talent, giving her the opportunity to sing in prestigious productions of works by Handel – Giulio Cesare (Sesto, alongside Karina Gauvin and Marie-Nicole Lemieux), Admeto (Antigona), Amadigi di Gaula (Oriana), Arianna in Creta (Alceste), and in prestigious venues such as the Theater an der Wien, Auditorio nacional in madrid and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Handel occupies an important place in her repertoire: she has sung Messiah (Detroit Symphony Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra Washington, Nathalie Stutzmann conducting), Almirena in Rinaldo (Il Pomo d’Oro and riccardo minasi), Armindo in Partenope (Il Pomo d’Oro and Maxym Emelyanychev, with a recording on Erato), Morgana in Alcina (Accademia Bizantina and Ottavio Dantone, with Inga Kalna and Philippe Jaroussky) and Asteria in Tamerlano (Les ambassadeurs and Alexis Kossenko). In April 2014, she sang the soprano part in Duello Amoroso, a pasticcio after Handel, with Nathalie Stutzmann conducting the ensemble Orfeo 55 at the Bordeaux Opera (with Jean-Louis Grinda as stage director).

Emőke Baráth regularly sings Bach’s masterpieces: the Mass in B Minor (Les musiciens du Louvre and Marc Minkowski), Saint Matthew Passion (Liverpool Royal Philharmonic with Nathalie Stutzmann), the Christmas Oratorio (successively with the Freiburger Barockorchester, Göteborg Symphony Orchestra, the French ensemble accentus and Emmanuelle Haïm with Le Concert d’Astrée). She has also performed cantatas with Accademia Bizantina conducted by Andreas Scholl (Festival de Beaune).

She is in demand in repertoire by the composers of the Seicento, having sung the title-role in Elena by Cavalli (Cappella Mediterranea conducted by Leonardo García Alarcón, with Jean-Yves Ruf as stage director – Festival d’Aix-en-Provence), Romilda in Xerse by the same composer (Le Concert d’Astrée, Emmanuelle Haïm, with a staging by Guy Cassiers – Lille Opera, Théâtre de Caen, Theater an der Wien). She took on the title-role of Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea at the Innsbruck Festival and the Budapest Opera, and the same composer’s Euridice in L’Orfeo (Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset, Claus Guth as director). She sang Monteverdi’s Selva morale e spirituale with Concentus musicus Wien conducted by Pablo Heras Casado.

Emőke Baráth is increasingly in demand in Mozart’s works: she was a highly acclaimed Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro (Les Musiciens du Louvre and Marc Minkowski, with Director Felix Breisach), Tamiri in Il Re Pastore (Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra and Gábor Takács-Nagy – Verbier Festival), Zerlina in Don Giovanni and Despina in Così fan tutte (Budapest Opera). In 2016, she sang the Mass in C Minor on 3 occasions: with the Bergen Philharmonic, the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra.

In 2017/2018, she sings the role of the Angel in Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise with Sylvain Cambreling and the Yomiuri Symphony Orchestra Japan, Bach’s Magnificat and Handel’s Dixit Dominus with Emmanuelle Haïm and Le Concert d’Astrée and Bach’s Mass in B minor with Concentus Musicus Wien. Following the release of the recording of Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice (Erato), she performs in the work at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and in Versailles alongside Philippe Jaroussky and Patricia Petibon, under the baton of Diego Fasolis and with a staging by Robert Carsen.