Croatian mezzo-soprano Nina Tarandek began 2025 performing the role of Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. Shortly thereafter, she appeared in the new production of Wagner’s Parsifal at the Oper Frankfurt. At the 55th Baroque Festival in Varaždin, she performed with the ensemble Camerata Garestin, presenting works by Alessandro and Domenico Scarlatti as well as Georg Friedrich Handel. She will perform Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony with the Holst Sinfonietta in Freiburg.
In the summer of 2024, she appeared in Die Walküre at the Tiroler Festspiele in Erl and performed songs by Franco Alfano at the MITO Settembre Musica Festival in Turin. At the Ultraschall Festival in Berlin, she sang a portrait concert dedicated to Jean Barraqué, which was broadcast on Deutschlandfunk Kultur. Furthermore, she performed in a CD release concert in Freiburg featuring works by Franco Alfano, whose recording was nominated for the German Record Critics’ Award.
Recent engagements have seen her perform as Mercédès in Carmen at the open-air stage “Oper im Steinbruch” in Austria, as Beppe in L’amico Fritz, and as Ortlinde in Die Walküre at the Tiroler Festspiele Erl. She previously appeared there in Bach’s St. Matthew Passion, which was broadcast by ORF in the television series Wir spielen für Österreich. Additionally, she performed at the 52nd Baroque Festival in Varaždin with the Varaždin Baroque Orchestra in Varaždin Cathedral and in the Sultans of Opera concert with the Pera Ensemble at the Croatian National Theatre in Varaždin.
While a member of the Ensemble of Oper Frankfurt, she enjoyed great success in the roles of Angelina (La Cenerentola), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Dorabella (Così fan tutte), Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro), Sesto (Giulio Cesare in Egitto), Kate (Owen Wingrave). Guest engagements have seen Ms Tarandek perform as Sesto at Theater Freiburg, in Dido and Aeneas at the Semperoper Dresden, in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Volksoper Wien, as the Zweite Hofdame (Der Prinz von Homburg) at Theater an der Wien, Dorabella at Vilnius City Opera and with the Simon Bolivar Orchestra. She also inspired audiences as La Malaspina in the Italian premiere of Sciarrino’s Luci mie traditrici (CD by Stradivarius, DVD by EuroArts) at Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte Montepulciano.
As a concert performer, Tarandek has collaborated with the hr-Sinfonieorchester, the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra as Anna Kennedy in Maria Stuarda at the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in The Cunning Little Vixen at the Gasteig Munich, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg in Mozart’s C minor Mass and Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, the Vienna Philharmonic on tour in China, the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Rudolfinum, the Zagreb Philharmonic, and the Wiener Virtuosen in Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater at the Wiener Musikverein. She has worked with distinguished conductors including Sebastian Weigle, Pier Giorgio Morandi, Leopold Hager, Franz Welser-Möst, Antonello Manacorda, Pablo Heras-Casado, Erik Nielsen, Francesco Lanzillotta, Jader Bignamini, Alexander Soddy, Joana Mallwitz, and Thomas Guggeis.
The song interpretation stylings of Ms Tarandek have inspired audiences in Kassel, Germany, at the Kasseler Musiktagen, in Koblenz, Germany, at the Koblenzer Kammerkonzerten, in the hr-Sendesaal performing Wagner Wesendonck-Lieder with the Frankfurt String Sextet, at Oper Frankfurt, at the Chamber Music Festival in ÄŒakovec, Croatia, and in Abu Dhabi.
Ms Tarandek studied voice with Ute Schwabe and Julia Conwel, as well as Song and Oratorio interpretation with Carolyn Hague and Birgid Steinberger at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.
In 2018 she was a "Singer of the Year" nominee in Opernwelt magazine. In 2006, she won First Prize in the Fidelio Competition in Vienna.