Viktorija Miškūnaitė

Viktorija Miškūnaitė (born 26 January 1983) is a Lithuanian opera singer and principal soprano at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre (LNOBT) in Vilnius. Her main roles at the LNOBT include Violetta in La traviata, Manon in Manon, Mimi in La bohème, Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Aida in Aida, Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier and others. She has been awarded the Golden Cross of the Stage (Auksiniai scenos kryžiai) twice — in 2016 and 2018 — and four times has been acknowledged with Opera Soloist of the Year by the LNOBT (2015, 2017, 2023, 2025).

Internationally, she has appeared at the Verbier Festival, the Festival della Valle d'Itria, the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and concert tours in Asia including Japan and Thailand. Recorded the title role in Saverio Mercadante's Didone Abbandonata for Naxos in 2019.

Early life and education

Miškūnaitė was born on 26 January 1983 in Šiauliai, the fourth-largest city in Lithuania. Since 1998, she began to sing in the church choir and later was spotted for her notable performance. In 1999, she completed the First Music School in Šiauliai. In 2001 she entered the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (LAMT) in Vilnius to study opera singing, working with professors A. Stasiūnaitė and Asta Krikščiūnaitė. She received the special Verbier Festival Academy Award in 2013. Additionally, she sang with the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, the Čiurlionis Quartet, the St. Christopher Chamber Orchestra, the Klaipėda Chamber Orchestra, the Lithuanian Armed Forces Headquarters Band and others.

In 2010, she took part in Druskininkai contemporary art festival DRUSKOMANIJA where performed the soprano part in Rūta Vitkauskaitė's opera Kliudžiau (I Hit the Mark). She was later invited to appear at the contemporary music festival Gaida, and the Tytuvėnai summer festival. Her other principal roles at the theatre have included Violetta in La traviata, Micaela in Carmen, Mimì and Musetta in La bohème, Elisabetta di Valois in Don Carlo, Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi (conducted by Sesto Quatrini, directed by Vincent Boussard, June 2017), Tatiana in Eugene Onegin, Antonia in Les Contes d'Hoffmann, Rachel in La Juive, the Marschallin in R. Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Aida in Aida, Suor Angelica in Puccini's Il trittico, and Elettra in Mozart's Idomeneo (directed by Graham Vick, 2018).

In September 2025, she performed as Aldona in the Lithuanian premiere of Ponchielli's I Lituani (directed by Hugo de Ana), a work drawn from Adam Mickiewicz's poem Konrad Wallenrod, and was subsequently named Opera Soloist of the Year 2025 by the LNOBT — her fourth such award. In February 2020, she appeared in Skiriama Nepriklausomybei ("Dedicated to Independence"), a concert marking the 30th anniversary of the restoration of Lithuania's independence held under the patronage of President Gitanas Nausėda, in which the LNSO performed a programme of Lithuanian composers.

At the Pažaislis Music Festival, Lithuania's largest classical music festival, she opened the 28th edition in June 2023 as Santuzza in a concert performance of Mascagni's Cavalleria Rusticana with the LNOBT Symphony Orchestra and Choir under Ričardas Šumila at the Pažaislis Monastery in Kaunas. She returned to the festival in May 2024 for a recital dedicated to Puccini with the Kaunas City Symphony Orchestra under Constantine Orbelian and the Kaunas State Choir under Robertas Šervenikas. In November 2024, she performed at the Vilnius Festival gala marking the 70th birthday of the festival's founder, Gintautas Kėvišas, alongside Maltese tenor Joseph Calleja, violinist Sergei Krylov, and pianist Simon Trpčeski.

She has performed Ravel's Shéhérazade with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra under Cyril Diederich, and Villa-Lobos's Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5 with the LNSO under Modestas Pitrėnas at the closing concert of the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society's 84th season in May 2025.

International career

She is not a star. She is a radiant diamond, to be enjoyed up close. — Jürgen Flimm, on Austrian broadcaster ORF, August 2018 In August 2018, she sang the title role in Mercadante's Didone Abbandonata at the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, at the Tiroler Landestheater, in a production conducted by Alessandro De Marchi with the Academia Montis Regalis. The performance drew notice from critics and fellow artists alike: MusicWeb International reviewed the recording favourably, and German director Jürgen Flimm, a former Salzburg Festival artistic director, praised her performance in an interview with Austrian broadcaster ORF.

In May 2018, she performed the soprano solo in Rachmaninoff's The Bells with the MDR Symphony Orchestra under Risto Joost at the Leipzig Gewandhaus.

In July 2024, she performed the title role of Madama Butterfly in Bangkok, in a production organised by the Office of the Prime Minister of Thailand, the Ministry of Culture, and the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra Foundation under the executive patronage of HRH Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana Rajakanya, staged to mark the 72nd birthday of King Rama X. The Princess designed 14 of the production's 54 costumes through her fashion house SIRIVANNAVARI.

In 2024, Miškūnaitė undertook a debut concert tour in the Hokkaido region of Japan, organised with support from the Embassy of Lithuania to Japan. The following year, she performed in the Lithuania–Japan Musical Dialogue concert at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art in Kaunas.

Discography

Opera

Year Title Role Conductor Label Notes 2019 Mercadante: Didone Abbandonata Didone Alessandro De Marchi Naxos NBD0095V Blu-ray; recorded live at Tiroler Landestheater, Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, August 2018; Academia Montis Regalis; subtitles in six languages 2026 Ponchielli: I Lituani Aldona Ričardas Šumila OperaVision Streaming; recorded at the Lithuanian National Opera and Ballet Theatre, January 2026; directed by Hugo De Ana; streamed 29 May – 29 November 2026; subtitles in Lithuanian, English, and Italian

Awards Year !! Award !! Awarding body !! Notes