Verena Gunz, mezzo-soprano, was born in Linz, Austria, and graduated at the School of Music and Drama at the University of Vienna. She sang the role of Nancy in Albert Herring for the Cantiere Internationale di Montepulciano in Italy.
She also returned there in July 2016 to sing the lead role of The Journalist in David Blake’s new opera, Icarus, which was written for her. Verena has performed as a solo Flowermaiden and 2nd Esquire in a new production of Parsifal at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen and was then engaged there as Ninon in Krzysztof Penderecki’s The Devils of Loudon. She performed Cherubino in a new production of Le nozze di Figaro for Polish National Opera, Warsaw, a critically acclaimed debut at the Bregenz Festival as Nerissa in the award-winning world premiere of The Merchant of Venice by André Tchaikovsky, broadcast live on TV (also on DVD), and in subsequent revivals in Warsaw, WNO, and at the ROH. Her debut with the ROH was in Luigi Rossi’s Orfeo, at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Recently Verena made her debut for the Semperoper in Dresden/Germany in Die Königskinder.
In 2023 she sang Sesto in La clemenza di Tito, the Mother in Hänsel und Gretel, a Bach cantata with the Vienna Philharmonic, and made a notable debut at the Musikverein.