(Credit:(c) Wiener Staatsoper / Michael Poehn)

On Dec. 8, 2019 the Wiener Staatsoper will make history performing “Orlando.” The work was composed by Olga Neuwirth, the  first woman to be commissioned to compose an opera for the theater in over 150 years. Based on Virginia Woolf’s novel of the same name, the work will feature an international cast including celebrated American soprano, Constance Hauman.

Hauman will make her Wiener Staatsoper debut and will create three roles including Queen Elizabeth I, Purity, and Friend of Orlando’s Child in the new opera. The new work will continue Hauman and Neuwirth’s collaboration as the two first worked together in Austria on “Lost Highway,” the composer’s 2003 opera adaptation of the 1997 David Lynch film of the same name. For “Orlando,” Neuwirth handpicked the roles that Hauman would sing, fortifying their collaboration.

Hauman was a protégé of Leonard Bernstein and has since performed over 2,000 times with such prestigious opera companies and orchestras as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Welsh National Opera, English National Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Spoletto and Santa Fe USA Festivals, Opera National de Paris, Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, London Symphony, and the London Philharmonic. Aside from her work as an opera singer, she has also sung rock music and is the band leader and songwriter of the rock band Miss Velvet & The Blue Wolf.

Recording

For those not familiar with Hauman’s voice, the soprano has a recording of Berg’s “Lulu” on Chandos Records as well as two critically acclaimed albums “High Tides,” which was released earlier this year and “Falling Into Now” her solo album. She also has “Feed the Wolf” with her band Miss Velvet & The Blue Wolf.

Here she is performing Glitter and Be Gay from “Candide.”