INTERNATIONAL IRISH MEZZO-SOPRANO TARA ERRAUGHT TO PERFORM MARGUERITE IN PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA'S DAMNATION OF FAUST MARCH 8-10

March 4, 2019

PITTSBURGH, PA—French mezzo-soprano Clementine Margaine has withdrawn from Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra March 8-10, 2019, due to illness, Melia Tourangeau, President and CEO announced today. Tourangeau added that, “Everyone at the symphony wishes Clementine very well and we look forward to welcoming her back in a future season.” Internationally-acclaimed mezzo-soprano Tara Erraught will perform Marguerite in the symphony’s concerts, in both a role debut as well as a debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In recent seasons, Erraught has sung world premieres, made numerous role debuts, made her Metropolitan Opera debut, and appeared in recitals and concerts throughout the world.

Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust is a powerful, blockbuster work that is considered a “dramatic legend,” neither a symphony nor an opera. An epic story that is rarely staged, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra’s performances, led by Music Director Manfred Honeck, will fill the Heinz Hall stage with a 98-piece orchestra; more than 170 chorus members (the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh and Pittsburgh Youth Chorus); and four all-star soloists (Charles Castronovo, Luca Pisaroni, Tara Erraught, and Alexander Birch Elliott).

About Tara Erraught

Following a fall 2018 that included singing the role of Angelina in La Cenerentola in an eight-city tour of the United Kingdom with Welsh National Opera; Despina in Cosi fan tutte and Hansel in Hansel und Gretel with Bayerische Staatsoper; recital debuts with the Oxford Lieder Festival and the Sir Arthur Bliss International Song Series at Cambridge University in the UK and Ireland’s Drogheda Classical Music Series, Ms. Erraught can be heard in performances in Germany, France, the United States and Ireland this winter/spring 2019. Performance highlights include Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with Staatsoper Berlin and the Deutsche Oper am Rein’s AIDS Gala 2019 in Germany; debuts with Orchestre National de Lyon and the symphony orchestras of Indianapolis, Milwaukee and Savannah Philharmonic (closing their tenth anniversary season), and a return to Ireland’s National Concert Hall International Concert Series.

Upcoming announced 2019-20 engagements include a debut with the UK’s Holkham Hall Chamber Music Concert Series; returns to Austria’s Schubertiade Schwarzenberg in summer 2019, to Wigmore Hall in December 2019 in recital and to the Metropolitan Opera in the title role in Rossini's La Cenerentola in spring 2020. In February 2020 Ms. Erraught performs on the closing concert of The Mozarteum Foundation Salzburg's Mozart Week 2020. Tara Erraught can be heard on Deutsche Gramophone’s 2018 Grammy-nominated live concert recording of Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito in Baden Baden in the role of Annius, and in Glyndebourne’s 2010 recording of Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel in the role of the Sandman. She can be seen on DVD in the title role of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier on the Opus Arte label. 

A resident principal soloist with the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich from 2010 - 2018, amongst her awards are a prestigious Promeritis scientiae et litterarum (2013) from the Bavarian government in recognition for outstanding contribution to the arts, a 2010 Dublin’s National Concert Hall's Rising Star Award, and a 2007 Dermott Troy Award for the Best Irish Singer. A native of Dundalk, Ireland, Tara Erraught is a graduate of the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin, where she studied, and continues to study, with the acclaimed Royal Opera soprano Veronica Dunne. 


Media Contacts
Julie Goetz | Director of Communications
jgoetz@pittsburghsymphony.org | 412.392.4866