About me.

Soprano Venicia Sandria Rasmussen, of Italian-Danish-American heritage, has been hailed by Dernières Nouvelles d’Alsace as "La Future Diva." She has toured extensively throughout China with the Italian Philharmonic Orchestra Abruzzese (2018-2024), captivating audiences in major operatic roles including Violetta, Cio-Cio-San, Mimì, Rusalka, and Tosca, as well as in Chinese and Neapolitan song repertoire, performing before thousands of enthusiastic listeners.

In 2024 and 2025, she returned to China’s foremost stages, completing an intensive opera tour across 18 opera houses, arenas, and cities nationwide within a period of 22 days. She "is definitely one of the best in her field" (Conductor Hartmut Mende); "Venicia shines, she is charged with positive energy, a power-woman" (Wormser Zeitung).

In 2026, Venicia expands her artistic profile into the new vocal category of dramatic soprano and is already performing concerts and opera evenings in this repertoire. Her repertoire includes works from the Bel Canto tradition, the Italian and German operatic repertoire, as well as Verismo. Since 2025, she has regularly appeared as a soloist at the Bruchsal Palace Concerts and has performed successful concert tours and opera evenings with her duo, including the programs "Vienna, Wine and Song" and "Best of Opera."

She completed her operatic studies at the University of Music Karlsruhe in 2016/2017, earning a double Bachelor’s degree (Bachelor of Musical Arts in Opera Singing; Bachelor of Pedagogy and Art Song, with distinction) and a Master’s degree in Opera Singing, awarded magna cum laude. At the Wolfgang Rihm Forum and the Institute for Music Theatre Karlsruhe, she portrayed roles including Poppea, Susanna, the Cat in Puss in Boots, and Mrs. Maurrant in Street Scene. She is a scholar of the Richard Wagner Verband, Yehudi Menuhin’s Stiftung "Live Music Now," the Heinrich Hertz Stiftung and the DAAD.

In May 2023, she was awarded the Laureate Gala Competition Prize and subsequently made her Carnegie Hall debut in New York in June of the same year, appearing as Cio-Cio-San (excerpts). During the summer of 2023, she returned to the Volksschauspiele Ötigheim, portraying Maria (West Side Story), Bess (Porgy and Bess), and Eliza (My Fair Lady). That same summer, she refined the roles of Cio-Cio-San and Elisabetta (Don Carlo) on stage as part of the Werktheater professional training program in Munich. In December 2022 she released her first composed single to her Album, "Freeyer," an Earth Anthem written for World Peace.

In the summer of 2022, she made her debut at the Teatro del Casinò di Sanremo, performing her signature roles of Violetta and Cio-Cio-San with the Sinfonica di Sanremo under the baton of Alfredo Sorichetti. In July 2022, she also appeared for the first time at the Volksschauspiele Ötigheim in the roles of Gilda, Rosina, and Violetta. In September 2021, she received Third Prize at the International Anita Cerquetti Opera Competition, followed by concert performances at the Teatro delle Logge and the Teatro del Casinò di Sanremo, and she reached the Finale of the Concorso lirico Rinaldo Pelizzoni. In 2021, she performed at the Opera Extravaganza Festival in Vetralla, singing the roles of Mimì, Cio-Cio-San, and Juliette. She made a successful debut as Violetta with Civitanova Opera on the Piazza della Madonna in Loreto. Further engagements followed with the Orchestra del 7 and the Puccini Symphony Orchestra at the Teatro Civitanova Alta and in Marotta sul Mare. That same year, she was invited to make her debut at the Teatro Greco in Taormina (August 2021).

Her early career includes her 2017 debut in the world premiere of Glut at the Nibelungen Festival in Worms, where she portrayed the spoken and sung role of the Valkyrie/Brünnhilde. In the same year, she appeared as a soloist at the newly inaugurated Elbphilharmonie Hamburg and at the International Opern-Air Concert in Bensheim, Frankfurt.

Already at the age of eleven, she was recognized as an "exceptional natural talent" following major public violin performances and competitions, interpreting works by Paganini and Vivaldi while also presenting her own compositions. At fifteen, she appeared as a principal soloist in concerts at the Vatican, at the Easter Mass in St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice, and at the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence.