Ermonela Jaho

Soprano Ermonela Jaho ranks among Albania’s foremost vocalists and has committed multiple seldom-heard operatic scores to disc for the Opera Rara imprint.

Born in Albania in 1974, she relocated with her parents to Tirana at the age of two. Her mother, prevented by relatives from attending the Tirana Conservatory despite having gained admission, channeled her thwarted ambitions into her daughter’s training; Jaho’s father, an officer in the Albanian army, likewise supported her pursuit of singing, which began when she was six. After completing her studies at Tirana’s Jordan Misja Artistic Lyceum in 1992, she enrolled the next year at the city’s Academy of Fine Arts. During a master class there led by Italian soprano Katia Ricciarelli, Jaho received an invitation to continue lessons in Italy for two months. Eager to leave a still-Communist Albania that frowned on singing in any language but Albanian, she remained in Italy, supporting herself through au-pair work while residing in an inexpensive convent hostel in Rome and enrolling at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Her first stage appearance occurred in a Bologna production of Puccini’s La bohème.

Three competition victories propelled her career forward: first prize at Milan’s Giacomo Puccini Competition in 1997, first prize at the Spontini International Competition in Ancona the following year, and the designation of Best Singer at Britain’s Wexford Festival in 2000. She made her recording debut in 2003 as a soloist on the album Una furtiva lagrima: Donizetti and Bellini Arias alongside tenor Juan Diego Flórez. Having settled in Bologna after her early successes there, she renewed contact with childhood acquaintance Ervin Stafa, who had moved to New York; the pair married and she joined him in that city. Subsequent engagements have taken her to the Metropolitan Opera, La Scala, the Staatsoper Berlin, and the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées. Although formed in the bel canto style, she has also embraced numerous verismo roles. Her first leading part on disc arrived in 2016 with Leoncavallo’s Zazà for Opera Rara; further projects for the label included Puccini’s early opera Le Willis. In 2023 she recorded the role of Liù in Puccini’s Turandot for Warner Classics with the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia under Antonio Pappano.