As a celebrated interpreter of the most famous heroines of Verdi and Puccini, with a repertoire ranging from bel canto to verismo, Maria José Siri is considered one of the most important sopranos on the international opera scene today. She is "capable of total commitment" and has "brilliant high notes" (Neue Zürcher Zeitung), combined with a "steely voice with lyricism and pathos" (The Financial Times).
She is regarded as "a performer of the highest calibre, not only because of her lush voice, but also because of her charisma, which is ideally reminiscent of Tebaldi's full, round sound" (Opera Áctual).
After her successful debut in the role of Elvira in the production of "Ernani" at the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, she sang Aida at the Dresden Semperoper and at the Teatro Pérez Galdós. She returned to the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa and the Teatro Municipale Giuseppe Verdi in Salerno in the role of Tosca. After her great success in the role of Abigaille, which she recently sang at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, she once again enchanted Austrian audiences at the Graz Musikverein.
Born in Uruguay with Italian roots, she began studying music at a young age and later specialised at the Paris Conservatory and with the great Ileana Cotrubas. She celebrated her breakthrough in Europe in 2008 with Leonora in "Il trovatore" at the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. Since then, her career has developed steadily. In 2016, she opened the season at Teatro alla Scala with "Madama Butterfly" to great acclaim from audiences and critics alike. In 2017, she was honoured with the Oscar della Lirica.
At La Scala, where she made her debut as Aida in 2009, she performed the role again in 2015 and was later seen there in the new productions of "Francesca da Rimini" (2018) and "Manon Lescaut" (2019). In addition to an intensive relationship with the most important Italian opera houses, above all the Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, to which she owes several DVD recordings with her in the roles of Adriana Lecouvreur, Suor Angelica/Giorgetta, Abigaille, Lucrezia Contarini and Elvira, she works closely with the Vienna State Opera (Maddalena di Coigny, Madama Butterfly, Elisabetta di Valois, Leonora, Tosca) as well as with the most important German theatres: Staatsoper and Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper, Hamburgische Staatsoper, Semperoper Dresden. She can also often be seen at the Opera Royale de Wallonie in Belgium and in Spain, in particular at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, ABAO Bilbao and Teatro Pérez Galdós. She was celebrated at the Savonlinna Festival with the New National Theatre Tokyo and returned with great success to Latin America, where she appeared alongside Plácido Domingo in several gala evenings, including at the Teatro Colón.
She has a special relationship with the city of Verona, which she has made her adopted home, and the arena there, where she has sung roles such as Donna Elvira, Nedda/Santuzza, Lady Macbeth, more recently Abigaille, Madama Butterfly - and of course Aida, a role she has performed in over 150 performances in Europe, Asia, South America and even in front of the pyramids of Giza.
One of Maria José Siri's favourite heroine roles is the warrior Odabella in "Attila", which she debuted at the Teatro Comunale di Bologna (2016, DVD on Cmajor) and then reprised at the Teatro Regio di Parma (2018 and 2021). She also made her debut with this role at the renowned Royal Opera House in London in 2022/23. She made a further debut in 2022 at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden alongside Plácido Domingo.