Mihoko Fujimura

Mihoko Fujimura made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival in 2002 as Fricka in Der Ring des Nibelungen, and has returned for nine years in roles including Waltraute, Erda, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde, and Kundry in Parsifal. She has performed at leading opera houses, including the Vienna State Opera, Bavarian State Opera, Royal Opera House in London, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Salzburg Festival's Großes Festspielhaus, Semperoper Dresden, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and Teatro Real in Madrid. Her operatic repertoire includes roles such as Kundry, Brangäne, Venus, Fricka, Erda, Carmen, Mélisande, Amneris, Eboli, Fenena, Azucena, Idamante, and Octavian.

Fujimura has performed in concert with the Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, Munich Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre de Paris, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony, and Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Her concert repertoire includes Verdi's Requiem; Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, Rückert-Lieder, Des Knaben Wunderhorn, and Kindertotenlieder; Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder; and Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder.

She regularly collaborates with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Christian Thielemann, Zubin Mehta, Christoph Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, Mariss Jansons, Sir Colin Davis, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Chailly, Michael Gielen, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Kent Nagano, Fabio Luisi, Daniele Gatti, Simon Rattle, Charles Dutoit, Myung-Whun Chung, Semyon Bychkov, Franz Welser-Möst, Donald Runnicles, Jesús López-Cobos, Daniel Harding, and Adam Fischer. She also performs in recital with pianists Christoph Ulrich Meier and Wolfram Rieger.

Her current opera highlights include performing as Brangäne in Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde at Tokyo’s New National Theatre, conducted by Kazushi Ono and directed by David McVicar, and as Suzuki in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Concert highlights include Alma Mahler’s 7 Lieder with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kazushi Ono; Strauss’s Elektra at the Tokyo Spring Festival with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sebastian Weigle; Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with the Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christian Arming for Hiroshima’s Concert for Peace; and Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 with the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra conducted by Junichi Hirokami. She also embarks on a recital tour in Japan with pianist Wolfram Rieger.

In the 2024–25 season she performed Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with the NHK Symphony Orchestra at Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and Madama Butterfly with Opéra National de Lyon.

In 2014, Fujimura was awarded the Japanese government’s Purple Ribbon Medal of Honor for her contributions to academic and artistic development, improvement, and accomplishments.