© Angéline Moizard
About
Described as having an “opulent, rich, and flexible voice” (Jérôme Pesqué, ODB Opéra, December 2024), Fanny Utiger focuses mainly on Romantic heroines (Liu, Violetta, Suor Angelica, Marguerite, Agathe, Donizetti’s queens…) and Mozart roles (Donna Anna, Elettra, Fiordiligi, Contessa). She also made her German debut in Rheinsberg singing the title role in Piccinni’s rarely performed Didon.
She will make her debut in the soprano solo of Verdi’s Requiem in November 2025 at Victoria Hall (Geneva) and Théâtre de Beaulieu (Lausanne), and will premiere the soprano solo in Lucas Sakr’s oratorio for the 150th anniversary of Saint Joseph University (Beirut) in December. In January–February 2026, she will sing Sister Mathilde in Dialogues des Carmélites by Francis Poulenc at the Opéra de Lausanne. That same year, she will also launch a recital program devoted to German Romanticism with pianist Todd Camburn (TBA).
In parallel with her operatic work, Fanny has a special love for the lied repertoire (Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, Strauss) and performs works by both German (Alma Mahler, Ingeborg von Bronsart) and French (Jaëll, Holmès, Viardot, Bertin) women composers. She was live on RTS in January 2025 with pianist Léa Lefèvre in a recital dedicated to 19th-century French women composers. Scheduled for multiple dates in France and French-speaking Switzerland, this program will be further developed and performed in Paris in May 2025 at Salon La Felice. There, Léa and Fanny will namely juxtapose Marie Jaëll’s Fünf Lieder with Robert Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben.
In 2024, Fanny appears as Diane à la Houppe (Les Aventures du Roi Pausole, Honegger) at the Opéras of Lausanne and Fribourg, and performs in a gala concert at Lausanne’s Salle Paderewski, singing excerpts from Pagliacci and Die Entführung aus dem Serail (cond. Gena Liévano). In July, she sings the title role in Piccinni’s Didon with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin (cond. Bernhard Forck) at the Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg Festival (Germany), which also invites her to perform excerpts from La traviata in concert with the Brandenburg State Orchestra (cond. Azis Sadikovic). She will also appear as the Second Woman in Dido and Aeneas (Ouverture Opéra, Sion) in September 2024.
In previous seasons, she has sung the Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart, at the Castel Artès Festival) and Mimi in Bohémien.ne.x.s (based on Puccini — in collaboration with Nouvel Opéra Fribourg). In concert, she has performed the soprano solo in Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy at La Grange au Lac in Evian and the soprano solo in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.
Born in Lausanne, Fanny Utiger dedicated her childhood and teenage years to dance before earning a research Master’s degree in 17th-century literary history and discovering opera. She earned her Bachelor’s degree in 2024 from the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne, where she continues to study with Gerardo Garciacano, Leontina Vaduva, and Todd Camburn. She also works with Marie-Cécile Bertheau and Jean-Philippe Clerc. In masterclasses, she has worked with Raul Gimenez, Marina Viotti, Philippe Jaroussky, Bertrand de Billy, Christof Loy, Rosalind Plowright, Michael Fabiano, Iñaki Encina Oyon, Chantal Santon-Jeffery, and Brigitte Balleys.
She received a scholarship from the Jeune Scène lyrique of Arcal in 2024 and is a member of the 2024–2025 Nadia and Lili Boulanger cohort at the Jaroussky Academy.
In competition, she won prizes at Lavaux Classic 2023 with Ana-Maria Carabenciov and earned two awards at the 2024 Kammeroper Schloss Rheinsberg Competition. In October 2024, she won First Prize and the OSUL Prize at the Kattenburg Competition on the stage of the Opéra de Lausanne, where the final was conducted by John Fiore and she performed arias by Liu (Turandot) and Violetta (La traviata).
© Albert Heilmann