Swedish soprano Maria Bengtsson is praised as ,,...exceptionally touching, with radiant tone…” (The Daily Telegraph), for ,,... a marvellous, deeply touching characterisation, her voice yearning ever more luminously...the stage flooded with human warmth" (The Spectator) and “...magnificent singing Swedish soprano Maria Bengtsson...the voice has a wonderful luminosity - like a "halo", a ray... high art of messa di voce…" ( Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)
Bengtsson performs at international venues like the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, Opera Bastille and Palais Garnier in Paris, Staatsoper Unter den Linden and Deutsche Oper in Berlin, La Scala in Milan,Teatro Real in Madrid, Wien Staatsoper and San Carlo in Napels.
Maria Bengtsson´s recognizable warm and radiant timbre is particularly suitable for Richard Strauss lyric soprano roles, like Arabella, Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, Contess in Capriccio and Daphne. Her love for Mozart's music has accompanied her on stage for more than 20 years in roles such as La Contessa Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro, Donna Anna and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni and Fiordiligi in Cosi fan tutte. In 2021 she added Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes to her repertoire and has had a great success singing the role in Madrid, London and Paris.
The season 2024/2025 began for Maria Bengtsson at the Royal Opera House in London where she sang La Contessa Almaviva (Le Nozze di Figaro) and as Christine in the new production of Intermezzo at the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden. Following her extraordinary success as Christine in Intermezzo last season, she returns to the Deutsche Oper Berlin in the same role. The Vienna State Opera features Bengtsson as Donna Anna in the Don Giovanni guest performance at the Opéra de Monaco. Maria Bengtsson returns to the Frankfurt Opera in her signature role Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier and makes a guest appearance as La Contessa Almaviva at the Münchner Opernfestspiele. Concert engagements take the soprano to the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin with Barber's Knoxville, to Malmö and Hamburg with Strauss' Four Last Songs, both under the baton of Bertrand de Billy, to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Simone Young with Zemlinsky's Lyric Symphony and to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra with Mahler's Symphony No. 2.
Maria Bengtsson has worked with conductors such as Kiril Petrenko, Daniel Barenboim, Sebastian Weigle, Vladimir Jurowski, Thomas Hengelbrock, Bertrand de Billy, Sir Donnald Runnicles, Sir Mark Elder, Adam Fischer, Simon Young, Antonello Manacorda, Asher Fisch, Michael Gielen, Marc Minkowski, Gustavo Dudamel, Ivor Bolten, Riccardo Muti, Phillip Jordan and Lorenzo Viotti and with directors such as Deborah Warner, Calixto Bieto, Sir David McVicar, Tobias Kratzer, Peter Konwitschny, Claus Guth, Keith Warner, Alex Ranisch, Jan Philipp Gloger, Hans Neuenfels, Andreas Homoki, Vincent Boussard, Philippe Arlaud, Dimitri Tcherniakov, Kasper Holten, Sebastian Baumgarten, Herbert Fritsch, Jonathan Miller and Marco Arturo Marelli.
Maria Bengtsson studied singing at the University in Freiburg in Breisgau 1995-2000. 2000-2002 she was a member of the Volksoper in Vienna and from 2002-2007 she was in the ensemble of the Komische Oper in Berlin and sang all her important Mozartroles under the baton of Kiril Petrenko.