»Brilliant to the highest notes« is how the Süddeutsche Zeitung recently described the voice of the Greek coloratura soprano Danae Kontora. After her degree in Munich, this soprano became a member of the Frankfurt Opera opera studio and appeared there as Tigran in Handel’s ›Radamisto‹, as Barbarina in ›The Marriage of Figaro‹, as The Dew Fairy in ›Hansel and Gretel‹ and as A Voice From Heaven in ›Don Carlos‹. In 2013 she was awarded the Bavarian Art Prize and during her two years as chorus member at the Leipzig Opera she sang a most varied selection of roles including The Flower Girl (›Parsifal‹), The Young Shepherd (›Tannhäuser‹) and for the first time, The Queen of the Night from Mozart’s ›The Magic Flute‹.

She has also sung The Queen of the Night in the Semper Opera in Dresden, in the Comic Opera Berlin, in the Frankfurt Opera as well as with a modern twist in Barrie Kosky’s production at the Tiangiano Performing Arts Centre in Beijing. To date, Kontora has worked with renowned conductors and orchestras, including Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Mario Venzago and the Munich Radio Symphony Orchestra, Jurai Valcuha and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and also Sir Andrew Davis and the Royal Scottish Symphony Orchestra. This season, Kontora is giving a number of debuts: with Daniel Oren and the Greek National Opera, taking the role of Frasquita in ›Carmen‹, as Oscar in Verdi’s ›A Masked Ball‹ with the Israeli Opera and as The Queen of the Night in Austria’s Steinbruch Opera. She will also be appearing at the opera houses of Leipzig and Frankfurt.

Constantinos Carydis was born in Athens. After studying music theory and piano at Athens Conservatoire, he went on to complete his conducting studies at Munich College of Music and Performing Arts. Sought after across the world, he now receives invitations from numerous internationally renowned orchestras, including the Wiener and Berlin Philharmoniker, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, to name but a few.

During the 2025/26 season, he will be guest conductor with ensembles such as the Orchestra della Teatro La Fenice in Venice, the Deutsches Sinfonie Orchester Berlin and the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana. He is also returning to the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, amongst others. As an opera conductor, Carydis works regularly at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Frankfurt Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, The Wiener Staatsoper and the Berliner Staatsoper and many others. Constantinos Carydis can also be seen at major festivals in Salzburg, the Edinburgh International Festival, Dresden and Bucharest. In 2018, he made an impressive debut with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the following year, he conducted that same orchestra at the BBC Proms in London’s Royal Albert Hall.