Marjana Lipovšek comes from a musical family from Ljubljana. She first studied the piano and musical pedagogy in her native city, going on to study singing in Graz and Vienna. She then joined the Vienna State Opera, appearing as Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly. Since then she has appeared in major rôles in the leading opera houses of the world.

Rôles such as Octavian, Dorabella, Marina (Boris Godunov) and Ulrica (Un ballo in maschera) she sang first in Hamburg. She undertook her first Dalila in Samson et Dalila at the Bregenz Festival, winning acclaim, as she had for her first Carmen. With virtually the complete Strauss and Wagner repertoire suited to her voice, from Amme, Klytämnestra and Gaea to Fricka, Waltraute, Brangäne and Erda, she includes in her favourite repertoire rôles such as Azucena, Amneris and Mistress Quickly. At the Bavarian State Opera in Munich she has sung in productions of Elektra, Tristan und Isolde, Rheingold and Falstaff and in San Francisco has appeared in a complete Ring cycle. She has sung Elektra at the New York Metropolitan Opera and in Die Walküre in Chicago. She is a Vienna and Bavaria Kammersängerin.