Stella Doufexis
Mezzo-soprano Stella Doufexis was an unusually versatile figure in her native Germany and beyond, singing comic opera, contemporary music, choral music, and lieder with equal enthusiasm and skill. She remained active almost until her early death in 2015.
Doufexis was born on April 15, 1968, in Frankfurt, Germany. Her father was theater director Stavros Doufexis. Stella got her start singing in pop bands as a student. Her mother heard her sing and urged her to take voice lessons. Teachers confirmed her mother's impressions, and she enrolled at the Hochschule der Künste in Berlin, studying with Ingrid Figur. Doufexis took further courses with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Aribert Reimann, and Anna Reynolds. Her debut came in 1995 at the Stadttheater Heidelberg, in the pants role of Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, where she did so well that she was added to the theater's permanent company. She also made several guest appearances in Spain, Austria, and Belgium as well as Germany in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Doufexis moved to the Komische Oper Berlin in 2005, again becoming part of the company. There she sang not only famous roles in comic opera from Mozart to Richard Strauss but also contemporary music such as the opera Hamlet by Christian Jost, who was her husband. In the 2000s and 2010s, Doufexis increasingly appeared in major opera productions led by top conductors: at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in new productions of Berlioz's Les Troyens under Zubin Mehta, and Janáček's The Cunning Little Vixen under Jun Märkl, for example.
Doufexis had a large and varied song repertoire in several languages, running from Alessandro Scarlatti to Ravel and Poulenc, and she gave song recitals all over Europe. Her concert appearances included those with such varied ensembles as the Stuttgarter Bach Akademie, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Ensemble InterContemporain (under David Robertson). Doufexis made recordings for many major labels, including Berlin Classics, Harmonia Mundi, and Deutsche Grammophon, issuing a reading of Berlioz's Les nuits d'étee on Berlin Classics in 2013. The following year, she took a faculty position at the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf, but she died on December 15, 2015, in Berlin after a long battle with cancer. Recordings she made before her death continued to appear, including one, for Deutsche Grammophon, of parallel settings of the Dichterliebe cycle by Schumann and Jost, and in 2019, a recording of orchestral songs by Joseph Marx.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Discography
14 album(s) • Sorted by Bestseller
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Dichterliebe
Stella Doufexis, Peter Lodahl, Daniel Heide, Horenstein Ensemble, Christian Jost
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 12 Apr 2019
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Stravinsky, I.: Canticum Sacrum / Agon / Requiem Canticles
Christian Elsner, Stella Doufexis, Rudolf Rosen, Michael Gielen, SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln
Choral Music (Choirs) - Released by SWR Classic on 1 Jan 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Berlioz, Chausson & Ravel: Nuits d'ete
Stella Doufexis, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz & Karl-Heinz Steffens
Classical - Released by Berlin Classics on 22 Feb 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Claude Debussy : Poèmes
Stella Doufexis & Daniel Heide
Mélodies - Released by Berlin Classics on 22 Feb 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schönberg: Pierrot lunaire plus Jazz - Berio: Folk Songs
Classical - Released by NEOS Music on 1 Jan 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Esquisses de la Grèce
Art Songs, Mélodies & Lieder - Released by Coviello Classics on 1 Jan 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Verdi: Heroinen, Vol. 2
Júlia Varady, Bayerisches Staatsorchester , Stella Doufexis, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Opera - Released by Orfeo on 1 Jan 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Marx: Orchestral Songs
Angela Maria Blasi, Stella Doufexis, Bochum Symphony Orchestra, Steven Sloane
Classical - Released by Naxos on 12 Apr 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schumann: Dichterliebe, Op. 48: 7. Ich grolle nicht
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 22 Feb 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Dichterliebe
Stella Doufexis, Peter Lodahl, Daniel Heide, Horenstein Ensemble, Christian Jost
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 12 Apr 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Schumann: The Complete Songs, Vol. 4
Stella Doufexis, Oliver Widmer, Graham Johnson
Classical - Released by Hyperion on 1 May 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Hamlet Echoes: Songs by Loeffler, Liszt, Brahms, Shostakovich, Jost & Bridge
Stella Doufexis, Pauline Sachse, Daniel Heide
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon GmbH, Berlin on 18 Sep 2011
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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