Sibylla Rubens
The German soprano Sibylla Rubens studied singing (concert and opera) at the Staatliche Musikhochschule in Trossingen and at the Hochschule für Musik in Frankfurt/Main. She participated in numerous masterclasses, and was a student of Irwin Gage’s class for Lieder interpretation in Zurich. A much sought-after artist in Germany and abroad, she made her début with the Berlin German Symphony Orchestra in Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang-Sinfonie under Vladimir Ashkenazy, returning for concerts of Schumann’s Scenes from Faust conducted by Marek Janowski. These appearances form only a part of a distinguished career that has brought collaboration with leading conductors including Philippe Herreweghe, Heinrich Schiff, Heinz Holliger and Jeffrey Tate. She has collaborated closely in particular with Helmuth Rilling and the Stuttgart Bach Academy. Other appearances have been with conductors such as Roger Norrington, Herbert Blomstedt, Ton Koopman, Peter Schreier, Leopold Hager, Jonathan Nott, Michael Gielen, Marek Janowski, and Christian Thielemann, and their orchestras and ensembles. She sang worldwide in Haydn’s Paukenmesse, Beethoven’s Egmont, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang and both Brahms’s and Schumann’s Requiem.
As a Lieder singer, she had a great success with her first recital with Irwin Gage at the Ludwigsburger Schlossfestspiele in 1999, the beginning of a continuing collaboration with her former teacher in recitals in Barcelona, Amsterdam and Nuremberg. She won acclaim for her collaboration with Thomas Quasthoff in Hugo Wolf’s Italienische Liederbuch at the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade and in 2006 sang Schumann’s Myrten in Ludwigsburg. Her many recordings, among them the two big Bach Passions with Philippe Herreweghe, Schubert’s Lazarus, Bach’s St Mark’s Passion, the Mozart Requiem, Schumann and Humperdinck Lieder, are further testament to an exceptionally versatile artist.
