María José Siri

Soprano Maria José Siri specializes in Italian opera from bel canto to verismo. She has appeared at many major houses in Italy, where she lives, and in Germany. Of Italian background, Siri was born in Tala, Uruguay, on December 24, 1976. Her father was a tango enthusiast, and when she took up music, he taught her to sing and play piano in that style. Siri was trained partly in Uruguay, and she launched her performing career there in 2003. She won prizes at the Juventudes Musicales and Ars Lyrica Montevideo competitions (first prize at the latter), and she was named Newcomer of the Year that year by the Association of Argentine Music Critics. The following year, Siri headed for Europe, studying at the Conservatoire de Paris and going on for private lessons with Ileana Cotrubas. She won several more prizes, including first prize at the International Bilbao Competition in Spain and the audience prize of the Semperoper opera competition in Dresden, Germany. Siri made her European debut in 2008 at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa as Leonora in Verdi's Il Trovatore, and she focused squarely on Italian opera. Siri has gone on to appear at Italy's major opera houses and also at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino festival. She made her debut at La Scala in 2009 as Verdi's Aida and has returned to that famed venue several times, including in Puccini's Manon Lescaut in 2019. In 2018, Siri made her recording debut with the La Scala Theater Orchestra under conductor Riccardo Chailly, performing the Messa per Rossini, a collaborative requiem mass by Verdi and others on the occasion of Gioachino Rossini's death. Aida has become a signature role for Siri, who has even sung the part at the Pyramids in Egypt. She has also made an impact in German and Austrian houses, cultivating an ongoing relationship with the Staatsoper in Vienna and appearing at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Musikverein in Graz, Austria. In 2024, Siri was heard as Elvira in a live recording of Verdi's Ernani with the Orchestra e Coro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, conducted by James Conlon.
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