Colette Lorand

Colette Lorand (7 January 1923 – 26 April 2019) was a Swiss operatic soprano who made an international career. Known as a coloratura soprano, she created several roles in world premieres, including Sibylle in Carl Orff's De temporum fine comoedia in 1973 at the Salzburg Festival, and Regan in Aribert Reimann's Lear at the Nationaltheater München in 1978, also in the French premiere of this opera in Paris in 1982.

Career Born Colette Grauaug in Zürich, she grew up in a musical family. Her grandmother had been a celebrated singer in Hungary. Colette studied at the Musikhochschule Hannover, later privately with Melitta Hirzel in Zürich. She appeared in coloratura soprano roles such as the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte in the first performance in the new building of the Hamburg State Opera. She was a member of the house from 1955 to 1957 and from 1960 to 1969. In Lisbon, she appeared in 1961 at the Teatro Nacional de São Carlos as Konstanze in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail.

Lorand appeared in 20th-century operas by Frank Martin, Hans Werner Henze and Krzysztof Penderecki, among others.

In the 1981/82 season, she performed in Basel the role of Emilia Marty in Janáček's Die Sache Makropoulos. In this role, she retired from the stage in 1983.