Biography
Mata Katsuli was born into a family of musicians. She studied Byzantine music with her father from a very early age. She subsequently took lessons in piano and Western classical music at the Athens Conservatoire. At 16 she began her vocal studies at the same institution, graduating in 1994 with distinction. The Maria Callas Scholarship she was awarded in 1993 allowed her to continue her studies in Germany and Italy. She went on to win the Vincenzo Bellini Competition (Caltanissetta, Italy) in 1997.
Highly acclaimed for her singing and musical abilities, Mata Katsuli has forged herself a distinguished European career. Her music interests are diverse, and her repertoire includes a wide range of classical and contemporary operatic, oratorio, symphonic, and Lieder works, from Monteverdi and Cavalli to Stravinsky and Ligeti. Contemporary Greek operatic works and song cycles have also been written specially for her by Yorgos Koumendakis and Yorgos Kouroupos. Her operatic repertoire includes: Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Micaëla (Carmen) by Bizet; Desdemona (Otello), Cio-Cio-San (Madama Butterfly), Mimi (La bohème) by Puccini; Alcina (Alcina), Asteria (Tamerlano), and Romilda (Serse) by Haendel; Leocasta (Il Giustino) by Vivaldi; Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro), and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) by Mozart; Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor) by Donizetti; Gilda (Rigoletto) by Verdi; and Angelica (Orlando furioso) and Antigone (Antigone) by Theodorakis. Her oratorio repertoire includes Bach’s Matthäuspassion, Heandel’s Acis, Galatea e Polifemo and Messiah, Mozart’s Große Messe and Requiem, and Orff’s Carmina Burana.
Her symphonic repertoire includes Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4, and orchestral Lieder such as Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder, and Wellesz’s Sonnette der Elisabeth Barrett-Browning. She has also given many concerts singing a wide variety of Lieder. Mata Katsuli has collaborated with the conductors Sir Neville Marriner, Miltiadis Karidis and Angelo Cavallaro, and with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, and the Athens State Orchestra. She has appeared at venues across Europe, including the Teatro Comunale (Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino), the San Carlo Opera House (Naples), the Deutsche Oper am Rhein (Düsseldorf), the Montpellier Opera, the Moscow International Performance Arts Centre, and the Kölner Philharmonie, as well as at all major venues in Greece.
Her most recent recordings include Tamerlano (2007), Arianna in Creta (2006) which was awarded the Choc Prize by the Le monde de la musique magazine, and Oreste (2004), works by Haendel released on the MDG label.
