Mariam Battistelli
Mariam Battistelli is an Ethiopian-born Italian operatic soprano and actress.
Early life and education
Battistelli was left upon her birth at a Christian orphanage in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, being named by the nuns after Mary, mother of Jesus. At eight months old, she was adopted by a family from Mantua, Italy, where she grew up. After her parents' divorce, she was raised by her mother Laura, who worked as an educator for children with special needs.Battistelli discovered an interest in opera as a child, when her grandmother introduced her to it and her mother brought her to a performance of Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Teatro Bibiena in Mantua. She joined the children's choir of, where she went on to study Western concert flute and, aged 18, singing, in which she graduated with honours five years later. She attended Enzo Dara's academy and was noticed in Mantua, on the set of where she played the role of a page, by Spanish tenor Plácido Domingo, who selected her for his Centre de Perfeccionament at Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia, Spain. She trained there, first as a mezzo-soprano and then as a soprano, from 2013 to 2016. During her studies, she took part in several international opera singing contests in her country.
Career
Battistelli got her first main role on stage in 2014. In 2017, upon winning both first prize and audience prize at the Ottavio Ziino International Lyric Competition for emerging artists in Rome, Battistelli was invited by Dominique Meyer to join the Vienna State Opera, Austria, where she made her debut as Musetta in Puccini's La bohème, Gretel in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel and Pamina in Mozart's The Magic Flute. She remained there for three years, expanding her repertoire and marking the beginning of her international career.Since then, Battistelli has worked with conductors such as Ádám Fischer, Sian Edwards, Christian Thielemann, Speranza Scappucci, Zubin Mehta, Semyon Bychkov, Valery Gergiev, Federico Maria Sardelli, Kim Eun-sun, Steven Mercurio and Dan Ettinger, and has performed at venues which include the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Glyndebourne, the Opéra de Monte-Carlo, the Hamburg State Opera, the Royal Opera House Muscat, the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, La Fenice, the Teatro di San Carlo, the Toulon Opera, the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, the Teatro Municipale and the Teatro Coccia, as well as in Modena, Piacenza and her native Mantua. She has participated in international events like the Chorégies d'Orange and the Festival della Valle d'Itria. Other orchestras with which she has performed include the Vienna Philharmonic, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra and the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2023, the singer reprised the role of Musetta in a La Scala staging of La bohème based on Franco Zeffirelli's. In 2024, she starred in the musical film , directed by and and co-produced by Dolce & Gabbana, which was presented at the 19th Rome Film Festival in October 2024 and premiered at La Scala in January 2025. The film, which features arias from several classical operas as well as pop songs, is based on a stage version from 2017 at Royal Opera House Muscat, also starring Battistelli; in both, she plays the role of a modern Eurydice. She has also worked on opera and operatic pop events and recordings alongside Andrea Bocelli.
Battistelli has cited inspiration from sopranos Shirley Verrett, Jessye Norman, Maria Callas, Reri Grist, Kathleen Battle, Mirella Freni and Ileana Cotrubaș.