HOUBEN Lisa,
Soprano

Lisa Houben studied at the McGill Conservatory in Montreal, the Royal Conservatory of The Hague with Cristina Deutekom, with Rodolfo Celletti in Milano and José Van Dam in Bruxelles and she began her international career with Puccini’s Tosca. Her warm timbre and passion for drama brought her to prestigious stages worldwide, including the Opera of Rome, Palermo’s Teatro Massimo, La Fenice in Venice, Carnegie Hall, Seoul Art Center, Operas of Bordeaux, Lyon, Strasbourg, Bruxelles’s La Monnaie, the Vienna Volksoper where she sang Fidelio, Aida, Manon Lescaut, Macbeth and many other major roles. Throughout her career, Lisa Houben has incarnated over 45 roles, amongst which Elisabetta and Eboli (Don Carlo), Aida and Amneris (Aida), Leonora (La forza del destino), Verdi’s Abigaïlle (Nabucco), Giovanna d’Arco, Adriana Lecouvreur, Strauss’s Feldmarshallin (Der Rosenkavalier), Fidelio, Suor Angelica and Giorgietta (Il Trittico), Marguerite (Gounod’s Faust), Maddalena (Andrea Chenier), Fedora, Santuzza (Cavalleria Rusticana), Tatyana (Eugene Onegin), Miss Jessel (Britten’s The turn of the Screw), Contessa (Nozze di Figaro), Cherubini’s Médée, as well as some splendid rarities such as Schumann’s Genoveva, Kalman’s Gräfin Mariza, Samuel Barber’s Vanessa (French Premiere), Leoncavallo’s Zaza.   In contemporary repertoire, she sang the World Première of Giorgio Batistelli’s Richard III (Lady Ann) at the Opera of Flanders, and Philippe Boesmans’  Yvonne, princesse de Bourgogne at la Monnaie. The soprano also starred in Gerard Mortier’s production Sentimenti at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam and at the Singel in Antwerp.  In the concert repertoire, Mrs Houben sings to great acclaim in prestigious international concert halls, such as St. Petersburg Philharmonia with Ramon Vargas, Washington’s Constitution Hall, The Vatican with Jose Carreras and Andrea Bocelli , the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, Rotterdam’s Doelen, Hong Kong Cultural Center, Seoul Arts Center, Carnegie Hall. Amongst others, she sang Verdi’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Fauré’s Requiem and some rare scores such as Peter Benoît’s De Schelde and Persiani’s Ines de Castro. Mrs Houben interpreted Maurice Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Chausson’s Poème de l’Amour et de la Mer. She also performed in Mahler’s 4th Symphony at the Teatro Filarmonico of Verona, the Verdi Requiem in Calabria and in the Concertgebouw of Amsterdam, and the World Première of Anton Coppola’s Turandot in Florida.   Mrs Houben also enjoys performing crossover Pop-Classical music together with Placido Domingo Jr, Fabio Armiliato & Ramon Vargas.