Sumi Jo

Miss Jo is a Korean soprano borne in Seoul, on November 22nd 1962. After graduating in singing and piano in her home country, at Seoul’s Sun Hwa Art School, she arrived to Italy in 1983 to study singing at Rome’s Santa Cecilia Academy with tenor Carlo Bergonzi. In 1985 she received her diploma after three years of piano and vocal performance courses.

In 1986, Sumi Jo debuted at Trieste’s Giuseppe Verdi Communal Teather, playing Rigoletto’s Gilda. The performance grabbed the attention of Herbert von Karajan, who proclaimed her “a voice from the sky”.

In 1988 she became Barbarina, in The Marriage of Figaro, for her debut at the Salzburg Festival. Later she took the roles of Oscar in A Masked Ball and The Queen, in The Magic Flute. The came the great roles from the coloratura repertoire, such as Lucia, Zerbinetta, Fiorilla, Amina, Elvira, under the direction of famous directors Georg Solti, Zubin Mehta, Lorin Maazel and Richard Bonynge.

In 1992 Jo shared a Grammy award for Best Opera Recording for her performance in Richard Strauss’s Die frau ohne schatten. She also got involved in the movie soundtrack for Wojciech Kilar’s The Ninth Gate, whose main theme song was based on a melody from Camille Saint-Säens.

Instead of getting comfortable being “The Queen of the Night”, a part she have played in almost all the operas in the world and in several recordings, Miss Jo has successfully entered new genres like the French opera: From light ones (Auber, Adam, Offenbach) to deep ones (Massenet, Gounod, Charpentier), her voice always adapts perfectly to them.

Having a voice with a remarkable coloratura, one she dominates almost effortlessly, Sumi Jo knows how to characterize her roles combining a brilliant tone with a great accuracy in her performances.