Uta Priew

Uta Priew (born 3 August 1944) is a German operatic mezzo-soprano.

Born in Karlsbad, Priew began as a chorist at the Carl-Maria-von-Weber-Theater  in Bernburg. She took singing lessons with Wolfgang Rainer and Erna Feierabend at the "Georg Friedrich Händel" Conservatory in Halle and with Maria Croonen at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig.

In 1970, she was engaged by opera director Harry Kupfer at the Deutsches Nationaltheater und Staatskapelle Weimar and sang there in works by Mozart, Giuseppe Verdi, Johann Strauss, Christoph Willibald Gluck, Georges Bizet, Siegfried Matthus and Paul Dessau.

Since 1980, she was a member of the ensemble of the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin with roles such as Dorabella, Cherubino, Annius (La clemenza di Tito), Idamante, Selika (L'Africaine), Amneris, Cenerentola, Carmen, Jeanne in the opera The Devils of Loudun, Marie in Wozzeck, Klytämnestra, Herodias, Küsterin, Ortrud, Venus, Brangäne, Fricka, Waltraute and Kundry.

In 1984, she was appointed Kammersängerin. From 1988 to 2006, she was a permanent guest at the Bayreuth Festival with roles such as Kundry, Ortrud, Venus, Waltraute. From 1991 to 1996, she was a frequent guest at the Wiener Staatsoper with roles such as Kundry, Ortrud, Venus, Waltraute, Fricka and Brangäne.

Guest performances and concerts took place, among others also in Munich, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Paris, Milan, Copenhagen, Chicago, New York, Tokyo, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Nice, Monte Carlo, Sevilla under conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Pierre Boulez, Christoph von Dohnányi, Heinrich Hollreiser, James Levine, Kent Nagano, Peter Schneider, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Horst Stein, Otmar Suitner, and Marek Janowski.