Dramatic mezzo RAMONA ZAHARIA made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 2019 in Rigoletto as Maddalena. Born in Braila, Romania, she studied at the George Enescu University in Iasi and won numerous national and international competition prizes. Her solo career began in October 2009 at Romanian National Opera Timisoara. She made her international debut in 2012 at the Festival St. Margarethen in Austria as Carmen. Since then, she has sung in more than nineteen different productions of Carmen. Since the 2014/15 season, Ms. Zaharia has been a member of the ensemble at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf. Her repertoire includes Carmen, Maddalena in Rigoletto, Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera, Principessa di Bouillon in Adriana Lecouvreur, Federica in Luisa Miller, Princess Eboli in Don Carlo, Amneris in Aida, Flosshilde in Götterdämmerung and Das Rheingold, Erda in Das Rheingold, and Dalila in Samson et Dalila. She has sung in many opera houses including those in London, Hamburg, Stuttgart, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Riga, Seoul, Malmö, Bruxelles, and Luxembourg. Ramona Zaharia also participated at the 2020 recording of Richard Wagner’s Der Ring des Niebelungen under the baton of Axel Kober as Erda (Rheingold), produced by the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and released on all popular streaming platforms. Her highly praised Maddalena from the Royal Opera House was streamed in the Cinemas from March 2022.