{"id":2121,"date":"2025-12-30T12:56:48","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T11:56:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/?p=2121"},"modified":"2026-01-15T21:10:25","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T20:10:25","slug":"new-years-concerts-2026-theatre-ulm-preview-reports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/2025\/12\/30\/new-years-concerts-2026-theatre-ulm-preview-reports\/","title":{"rendered":"NEW YEAR’S CONCERTS 2026 WITH THE ULM PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA \u2013 PREVIEW REPORTS"},"content":{"rendered":"

S\u00dcDWEST PRESSE<\/strong>
\nA happy new year with Wagner<\/strong>
\nTheatre Ulm<\/strong> Soprano Maryna Zubko is Mimi in \u2018La Boh\u00e8me\u2019 and now the soloist for the
\nNew Year’s Concerts 2026. What does the future hold for her career?<\/p>\n

She came to Ulm a good seven years ago, in the 2018\/2019 season. One of her first roles was
\nSophie Scholl in the chamber opera \u2018Wei\u00dfe Rose\u2019 (White Rose). In an interview at the time, Maryna
\nZubko recounted how she had been in Kiev when the student protests sparked the bloody
\nrevolution against the Yanukovych regime on Independence Square. She had experienced everything
\nfirst-hand, as the National Music Academy of Ukraine is located right on the Maidan.
\n\u2018Sophie’s thoughts and feelings are very familiar to me,\u2019 said the soprano, “the Maidan was also
\nabout truth, justice and freedom.” The role brings back very emotional memories of the traumatic
\nevents.
\nThen came nightmares of a completely different kind: Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022,
\nand Maryna Zubko feared for her family and friends, for her parents, who lived in Shostka in the
\nnorth-east of the country, near the Russian border. The city was surrounded by Russian forces and
\nunder artillery fire. Her parents have since been evacuated and moved to Germany. Her brother
\nalso lives here, working as a veterinarian in Vechta. Maryna Zubko recounts this with gratitude
\nand relief during a conversation at the Theatre Ulm, the day after the premiere of \u2018La Boh\u00e8me,\u2019
\nin which she sang the acclaimed role of Mimi. She is tired, the singer admits, she couldn’t sleep
\nall night: too agitated, too euphoric. It’s understandable. \u2018Puccini’s wonderful music!\u2019 she enthuses.
\nnd this production with director Rolf Widder is a great gift, Kwonsoo Jeon, who plays Rodolfo,
\nis a \u2018dream partner\u2019.<\/p>\n

Mimi in La Boh\u00e8me? Maryna Zubko has also experienced significant artistic developments in recent
\nyears: she began her career as a dramatic coloratura soprano with the Ulm ensemble, delivering an
\noutstanding performance as Lucia di Lammermoor on stage. However, she is now conquering the
\nlyrical repertoire. The initial spark came from Offenbach’s opera The Tales of Hoffmann, in which
\nshe took on all four female roles and not only performed as the coloratura automaton Olympia at the
\nhighest level, but also as the lyrical soprano Marguerite in the second act. The initial spark was
\nOffenbach’s opera \u2018The Tales of Hoffmann,\u2019 when she took on all four female roles and impressed
\nnot only as the coloratura automaton Olympia in the highest register, but also as the melancholic
\nAntonia. The realisation: her voice has great potential in the middle register.<\/p>\n

Maryna Zubko is an ambitious, determined artist who does not rest on her laurels, who plans her
\ncareer and continues to take lessons. Russian soprano Elena Pankratova, who has sung Ortrud and
\nKundry at the Bayreuth Festival, is her coach: “Have confidence in your lyric repertoire, it’s a
\nhealthy development for your voice,” was her advice. “I tackled the technical challenges with a
\nlot of self-confidence. The Desdemona in Verdi’s \u201cOtello\u201d was then the litmus test. Can I do it or
\ncan’t I? It felt like a lottery. But I trusted my body.” And she won. And now Maryna Zubko is very
\nmuch looking forward to the role of Eva in Die Meistersinger von N\u00fcrnberg, the farewell production
\nof artistic director Kay Metzger, which will premiere in early June 2026.”Eva has always been a
\ndream role for me, and it suits my voice perfectly, as if Wagner had composed it for me.”<\/p>\n

Maryna Zubko will be performing Wagner at the 2026 New Year’s concerts at the Ulm Theatre:
\nwith Elisabeth’s \u2018Hallenarie\u2019 from \u2018Tannh\u00e4user\u2019. After the second performance of La Boh\u00e8me, she
\nflew to Barcelona especially to rehearse this aria (\u2018Dich, teure Halle, gr\u00fc\u00df ich wieder\u2019) with Elena
\nPankratova, who is making her debut there at the Gran Teatro del Liceu as Isolde. Typically,
\nMaryna Zubko is a perfectionist. In the summer, the Ukrainian attended a language course in Siena
\nto prepare for the role of Mimi in Puccini’s opera and improve her Italian skills. And while she was
\nin Florence, she spent a lot of money in a haute couture shop on fabric for a dress she will wear at
\nthe New Year’s concert. This is her second time as a soloist at the New Year’s Concerts at the
\nTheatre Ulm. She will also sing at the Theatre Ball on 14 February 2026: Sophie in a scene from
\n\u2018Der Rosenkavalier\u2019. Wagner, Strauss \u2013 that’s the new Maryna Zubko.<\/p>\n

She is very happy about her time in Ulm: “I put a lot of energy into it, Kay Metzger trusted me
\nand gave me big tasks and roles, and I seized the opportunities.” After this season, however, she is
\nleaving the theatre to embark on the next stage of her career. She is moving to Frankfurt am Main,
\nwhere her husband works as manager of the Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra. She does not yet have
\na permanent engagement in mind; she wants to work freelance. Everything else will fall into place.
\nShe always devotes herself one hundred per cent to her current task: on New Year’s Day, it’s Wagner’s
\nturn at the Theatre Ulm, but also light entertainment.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

AUGSBURGER ALLGEMEINE<\/strong>
\nThis year’s New Year’s Concert in Ulm is a farewell<\/strong>
\nThe 2026 New Year’s Concert once again puts soprano Maryna Zubko in the spotlight, who will be
\nleaving the Ulm Theatre at the end of the season. After the New Year’s Concerts, the audience will
\nonly have the opportunity to see her on stage in Ulm in Richard Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger von
\nN\u00fcrnberg” from June onwards. For the New Year’s Concert, Maryna Zubko has planned a grand
\nentrance. A unique evening gown, tailored from silk from Florence in a shade of purple with gold,
\nhas just been completed and is intended to underline what this New Year’s Concert means to the
\nUkrainian-born soprano with German citizenship. She emphasises her gratitude to the Theatre Ulm,
\nwhere she performed on stage for eight years and played major opera roles such as Anna Bolena,
\nLucia di Lammermoor, Maria Stuarda, Gilda and Desdemona.<\/p>\n

After this season, she will work as a freelance artist and have her main residence with her husband
\nin the Frankfurt area. When asked how often she has had to sing and act out death on the Ulm stage
\nin various roles as young women \u2013 and always with such intensity that she even experienced phantom
\npain in her neck during the scene where Anna Bolena dies on the scaffold \u2013 the soprano has to do the
\nmaths: It must have been more than 320 times that she has had to die on the Ulm stage \u2013 Puccini’s
\n\u2018La Boh\u00e8me\u2019, where she sings the dying Mimi, premiered just before Christmas and runs until 8 February.<\/p>\n

It is the wide range that Maryna Zubko displayed with great emotion in Ulm that will once again come
\nto the fore in this New Year’s concert: Wagner will be alluded to in “Dich, teure Halle gr\u00fc\u00df ich wieder\u2018
\nfrom \u2019Tannh\u00e4user”, but also in the \u2018Jewel Song\u2019 by the young Margarethe from Gounod’s \u2018Faust\u2019, among
\nothers. The second part will be all about love, from Franz Leh\u00e1r’s \u2018Liebe, du Himmel auf Erden\u2019 to
\n\u2018The Phantom of the Opera\u2019, mostly in the lighter muse. Maryna Zubko is not yet revealing what she
\nwill be wearing for this . The orchestra will take a similar musical approach, with an equally wide range:
\nthe audience will be entertained in the first part with Verdi and Puccini, among others, but also \u2013 as befits
\na New Year’s concert \u2013 with Johann Strauss.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"S\u00dcDWEST PRESSE A happy new year with Wagner Theatre Ulm Soprano Maryna Zubko is Mimi in \u2018La Boh\u00e8me\u2019 and now the soloist for the New Year’s Concerts 2026. What does the future hold for her career? She came to Ulm a good seven years ago, in the 2018\/2019 season. One of her first roles was...","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-presse-en"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2121"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2150,"href":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2121\/revisions\/2150"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marynazubko.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}