In a repertory spanning many of the great roles of the Italian, Czech, Russian and German repertoire, Polish soprano Barbara Dobrzanska has been praised by critics and audiences alike for her radiant, richly coloured voice and deeply moving interpretations.

Highlights of her 2025/26 season at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe include three major role debuts: Ortrud in a new production of Lohengrin, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, and the Mother in a new staging of Breaking the Waves. She also returns as the Mother in Hansel and Gretel, a role she first sang in the 2024/25 season. In 2024/25, she also repeated her signature role of Tosca, which she has performed to great acclaim for more than fifteen years. Other notable recent debuts in Karlsruhe include Hanna Glawari in Die lustige Witwe and the Foreign Princess in Rusalka, both in new productions.

Following early engagements in Trier and Dortmund, Barbara Dobrzanska joined the ensemble of the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe in 2002, where she quickly became a favourite with the public. Her wide-ranging roles there include the title parts in Suor Angelica, Madama Butterfly, Manon Lescaut, Tosca, Luisa Miller, La Gioconda, Kat’a Kabanová, Mazeppa, Rusalka, La vestale and Adriana Lecouvreur; Mimì in La bohème; Liù in Turandot; Alice Ford in Falstaff; Desdemona in Otello; Elisabetta in Don Carlo; Amalia in I Masnadieri; Amelia in Simon Boccanegra and Un ballo in maschera; Lady Macbeth in Macbeth; Margherita and Elena in Boito’s Mefistofele; Roxane in Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac; Maddalena in Andrea Chénier; Donna Anna and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni; Micaëla in Carmen; Antonia and Giulietta in Les Contes d’Hoffmann; Tatjana in Eugene Onegin; and Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus, among many others.

Outside Karlsruhe she has appeared in Verdi’s Messa da Requiem at the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, the Vienna Musikverein, and in Rome in memory of the Pope, and in an aria concert with the Munich Symphonic Orchestra. Other guest appearances include Marta in The Passenger and Micaëla at the Semperoper Dresden, Madama Butterfly and Suor Angelica at Graz Opera, Madama Butterfly at Budapest’s Philharmonic Hall and the Staatstheater Nürnberg, Leonora in La forza del destino in Darmstadt, Norma in Krefeld and Gelsenkirchen, and Turandot in Hof. She has also performed in Essen, Freiburg, Mannheim, Stuttgart, Regensburg, Warsaw, Krakow, Cagliari, at the Liederhalle Stuttgart, and at the Salzburg Festival.

Barbara Dobrzanska has worked with conductors including Jacques Delacôte, Leopold Hager, Carlo Montanaro, Pier Giorgio Morandi and Hans Wallat, and has appeared alongside artists such as Giovanna Casolla, José Cura, Denyce Graves, Franz Grundheber, Hildegard Behrens, Johan Botha, Giuseppe Giacomini, Martha Mödl and Anja Silja.

August 2025

[Photos: Felix Grünschloß / Staatstheater Karlsruhe]