Ioulia Spanou

Greek mezzo soprano Ioulia Spanou studied voice and opera performance at the University of Macedonia (Greece). Since her graduation she has studied with Suzanne McLeod, Nadine Secunde, Aris Argiris, Georgios Iatrou and Stephanie Hershaw. She made her debut as 2nd Witch in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas under the baton of Edo Frenkel. As a member of the Greek National Opera Studio, she sang her first Sesto in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito, Romeo in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, the role of Viola da Gamba in the musical Musica! Or the Battle of Sounds, by Theodore Economou and John Cage’s Europeras 1&2. Further roles included Flora in Verdi’s La Traviata, Tisbe in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Arnalta in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and La Sacerdotessa in Verdi’s Aida. As a winner of the Let’s Sing Competition 2023, she sang Messaggera and Speranza in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo in Czech Republic, Italy and Greece. 

Passionate about contemporary works and interdisciplinary performance practices, she was engaged with Schauspielhaus Bochum for Alkestis by Euripides, Theater Trier for the ballet Zorbas by Mikis Theodorakis and Kampnagel Hamburg for Voices by Daniel Dominguez Teruel. In 24/25 she was part of the production Sancta by Florentina Holzinger with performances in Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater Schwerin, the Wiener Festwochen and the Volksbühne Berlin.

In concert, she has sung Mozart’s Requiem in d-Moll, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Haydn’s Missa in angustiis and Salve Regina, Charpentier’s Te Deum and The Martlet’s Tale/Sweet Movie by Hadjidakis. 

She gained her first stage experience during her studies in drama as Cassandra in Euripides’ The Trojan Women, the chorus leader in Iphigenia in Aulis and Teiresias in Sophocles’ Antigone.

She has a degree in classical philology and taught the semantics workshop „Faraway so close: how a prop“ in the Music Rhetoric class of the Greek National Opera Studio. She speaks Greek, English, German, Spanish, French and Italian and is a certified Alexander Technique Teacher (ITM).