Winner of the Oper! Awards Best Female Singer 2024, Spain’s Best Foreign Artist Award, and Artist of the Year at the 2023 International Classical Music Awards, Ermonela Jaho is internationally recognized as one of the greatest operatic artists of our day. 

“With the unique beauty of her glorious, securely led and magnificently shimmering voice, Ermonela Jaho fascinates with her pure vocal aesthetics. But this is only one side of the singer’s great art, the other being her electrifying theatrical presence. Few singers achieve such a high degree of identification with their roles, such a total veracity and deeply moving emotion. Once on the stage, Ermonela Jaho throws off her own personality like a cloak and fully embodies the character she has to interpret” 

Acclaimed for vocal mastery which allows her to command a wide repertoire from Bel Canto to Verismo, Jaho displays a rare and unique commitment in her portrayals of roles such as Violetta in La traviata, the title roles in Anna Bolena, Madama Butterfly, Suor Angelica, Thaïs, Desdemona in Otello, Blanche in Dialogues des Carmelites, and many others. An international star, Jaho has sung at the world’s leading operatic stages including the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Bayerische Staatsoper, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Opéra national de Paris, Wiener Staatsoper, Teatro Real in Madrid, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, The Deutsche Oper Berlin and at the Arena di Verona.  

Season 2024/25 Ermonela Jaho returns to Teatro Real as the title role in Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur. Jaho first debuted the role at the Wiener Staatsoper season 2021/22 and has since performed the role at Ópera de Oviedo, and Teatro Municipale Giuseppe Verdi di Salerno under Maestro Daniel Oren. Following Jaho’s return to the stage as Adriana Lecouvreur, Jaho continues the season 2024/25 with a series of role reprisals across the world’s leading stages. She returns to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden this autumn 2024 as Antonia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Opéra de Lyon as Madama Butterfly. In the Spring of 2025, Jaho will perform a very special solo recital at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in February 2025 followed by her return to Staatsoper Hamburg as the title role of Maria Stuarda, and to Bayerische Staatsoper as the title role of Manon Lescaut, a role she debuted in Munich . She will close the season at the ABAO Bilbao as Desdemona in Otello. 

Last Season 2023/24 highlighted a series of exciting engagements and role debuts for the internationally recognized soprano. Jaho began the season at Opernhaus Zürich where she returned to reprise the role of Magda in Puccini’s La Rondine in a new production directed by Christof Loy. On the operatic stage, following her celebrated return to Zürich, Jaho reprised the role of Liù in Turandot at Opéra national de Paris in a co-production with Teatro Real directed by Bob Wilson, the role of Suor Angelica in Lotte de Beer’s production at Bayerische Staatsoper, and finally the role of Madama Butterfly for her debut at the Festival d’Aix en Provence in a new production by Andrea Breth. Additionally, Jaho triumphantly debuted the role of La Voix Humaine in Teatro Real’s first ever presentation of the oeuvre by Francis Poulenc. Beyond the operatic stage and staged productions, Jaho performed many concerts and recitals across the world. She performed in concert with the Philharmonia de Oviedo, and with the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra under Maestro Callegari in a special concert to honor Maestro Puccini’ centenary. Jaho also performed in the star studded Pappano Gala at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, in concert alongside Charles Castronovo for the Callas Opera Gala at the Megaron Concert Hall in Athens, as well as in recital at Palau de les Arts in Valencia. 

In recent prior seasons,  Jaho has performed as: Mimì in La bohème at Teatro Real;  Liù in Turandot at the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House Covent Garden and with l’Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome; Madama Butterfly in Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville;  Suor Angelica in Barcelona at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Violetta in La traviata at the Metropolitan Opera and on concert tour in Japan with the Teatro Massimo di Palermo,  Blanche in Dialogues des Carmelites at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Thaïs in concert at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées in Paris opposite Ludovic Tézier and more. 

Ermonela Jaho was born in Albania and began her vocal study at the young age of six. By the age of fourteen, she was taken to the Tirana Opera House for the first time to hear La traviata, a performance which inspired her steadfast determination to become an opera singer. Jaho completed her studies at the the Conservatory of Tirana and at Santa Cecilia in Rome. She made her operatic debut at 17 in Tirana as Violetta in La Traviata, a role she is now internationally celebrated for and has performed across the world.

Jaho has won singing competitions in Milan, Ancona, and Rovereto. She began her professional career appearing in roles at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (Mimì, La Bohème), Teatro La Fenice, Venice (Susanna, Le nozze di Figaro), Teatro Verdi Trieste (Micaëla, Carmen), and Wexford Festival Opera (Irène, Sapho). In 2005, she appeared as Violetta at l’Opéra de Marseille which bolstered the development of Jaho’s international career. She made most of her international house debuts as Violetta at the world’s top theaters such as the Metropolitan Opera, Wiener Staatsoper, Opéra national de Paris, Royal Opera House, Bayerische Staatsoper, Opera Australia, Opernhaus Zürich, Opéra national de Lyon, Oper Stuttgart, Royal Opera Stockholm, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Verona, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, at the Arena di Verona, and at the Choregies d’Orange. Jaho has also been recognized for her unique personification of the title role in Madama Butterfly, a role she has performed at the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Opéra national de Paris, Staatsoper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, Seville, Aix en Provence and more. Her Puccini repertoire also includes Mimì in La bohème, the title role in Manon Lescaut, Magda in La Rondine, Liù in Turandot, and especially Suor Angelica which she added to her repertoire in a new production at the Royal House, Covent Garden conducted by Sir Antonio Pappano and subsequently in a new production a the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich under Kirill Petrenko.  

Jaho’s repertoire also includes the title roles in Thaïs (Teatro Real, Madrid, 2018, Paris Théâtre Champs Élysées), Antonia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann (Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam, and London this Season 2024/25), Massenet’s Manon (London, Marseille, and Teatro alla Scala), Marguerite in Faust (Opéra national de Paris), Valentine in Les Huguenots (Opéra national de Paris), Desdemona in Otello (London, Madrid, Barcelona, and Bilbao this Season 2024/25), Amelia in Simon Boccanegra, the title role in Luisa Miller (Lyon), Blanche in Dialogues de Carmelites (Toulon, Bari, Munich).

Jaho’s recording of Leoncavallo’s Zazà (Opera Rara) was nominated for the 2017 International Opera Awards. Jaho has also recorded Puccini’s Le Villi and a highly acclaimed aria album, Anima Rara, an homage to the famed soprano of the past, Rosina Storchio.  Jaho won the Vocal Music Prize at the ICMA 2021 for her album Anima Rara. In addition to these special recordings, Ermonela Jaho sang the role of Liù in a very special recording of Turandot produced by Warner Classics under Maestro Antonio Pappano with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia released March 2023.  Jaho also received nomination by the Gramophone Awards Magazine for the Turandot Recording of Warner Classics and Erato.  Jaho is an ambassador for Opera for Peace and also Opera Rara.