Anja Harteros
Encyclopedia
Anja Harteros is a German opera
tic soprano
. In 1999, she became the first German to win the Cardiff Singer of the World competition
, North Rhine-Westphalia
, to a Greek
father and a German mother in Bergneustadt
, and has two siblings, Alexia and Georgios. As a child, she was encouraged by her parents to pursue classical music and singing. Eventually, her music teacher at the Wüllenweber-Gymnasium in Bergneustadt, August Wilhelm Welp, noticed her considerable talent and recommended that she be professionally educated in singing. At the age of 14 (in 1986), she started voice training under Astrid Huber-Aulmann in Gummersbach, concurrently with her schooling.
Her first performances were in music institute concerts and in a school production of The Marriage of Figaro
in 1990, as the Gräfin. In 1992 she gave her first concert at the Kantonsschule Schwyz in Switzerland.
From 1990 her musical education was entrusted to the technically-experienced conductor and repetiteur Wolfgang Kastorp at the Cologne Opera, who accompanied her in a series of concerts.
After completing high school in 1991, Harteros continued her voice studies at the Cologne music school under Liselotte Hammes at the Hochschule für Musik Köln
. Her original singing teacher, Huber-Aulmann, continued to teach her until early 1996, and Harteros accompanied Huber-Aulmann on concerts tours in 1993 and 1994 to Russia and the United States, which attracted lots of attention to the singer.
Just before her final exams, she was employed as a permanent member of the ensemble
at the Schillertheater in
Gelsenkirchen
and Wuppertal
. After her 1996 exams, she was given a permanent position with the ensemble at the opera in Bonn
.
In the summer of 1999, she won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition
, which led to many invitations for concerts and guest performances. This was the major breakthrough for her career: since then, she has appeared as a guest at all the major world opera houses, including Frankfurt
, Lyon
, Amsterdam
, Dresden
, Paris
, Hamburg
, Vienna
, New York
(Metropolitan Opera
), Munich, Cologne
and Berlin (Deutsche Oper), as well as the Salzburger Festspiele. She has also given concerts and Lieder recitals all over Germany, as well as in Boston
, Florence
, London, Edinburgh
, Vicenza
and Tel Aviv
. She sang the title role in a new production of Händel's Alcina at the opera festival in Munich in 2005.
Her repertoire includes the roles of Mimì (La bohème
), Desdemona
(Otello
), Micaëla (Carmen
), Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
), Elisabeth (Tannhäuser
), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte
), Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro), Arabella (Arabella
), Alice Ford (Falstaff
), and Alcina.
She sang her first Violetta in La traviata
in 2004 and her first Amelia in Simon Boccanegra
in 2005 with San Diego Opera.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
. In 1999, she became the first German to win the Cardiff Singer of the World competition
Biography
Harteros was born in BergneustadtBergneustadt
Bergneustadt is a municipality in the eastern part of the Oberbergischer Kreis , in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located 50 km east of Cologne. It is part of the Berg region.-First naming:...
, North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia is the most populous state of Germany, with four of the country's ten largest cities. The state was formed in 1946 as a merger of the northern Rhineland and Westphalia, both formerly part of Prussia. Its capital is Düsseldorf. The state is currently run by a coalition of the...
, to a Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
father and a German mother in Bergneustadt
Bergneustadt
Bergneustadt is a municipality in the eastern part of the Oberbergischer Kreis , in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located 50 km east of Cologne. It is part of the Berg region.-First naming:...
, and has two siblings, Alexia and Georgios. As a child, she was encouraged by her parents to pursue classical music and singing. Eventually, her music teacher at the Wüllenweber-Gymnasium in Bergneustadt, August Wilhelm Welp, noticed her considerable talent and recommended that she be professionally educated in singing. At the age of 14 (in 1986), she started voice training under Astrid Huber-Aulmann in Gummersbach, concurrently with her schooling.
Her first performances were in music institute concerts and in a school production of The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
in 1990, as the Gräfin. In 1992 she gave her first concert at the Kantonsschule Schwyz in Switzerland.
From 1990 her musical education was entrusted to the technically-experienced conductor and repetiteur Wolfgang Kastorp at the Cologne Opera, who accompanied her in a series of concerts.
After completing high school in 1991, Harteros continued her voice studies at the Cologne music school under Liselotte Hammes at the Hochschule für Musik Köln
Hochschule für Musik Köln
The Cologne University of Music is a music college in Cologne, and Germany's largest academy of music.-History:The academy was founded by Ferdinand Hiller in 1850 as Conservatorium der Musik in Coeln...
. Her original singing teacher, Huber-Aulmann, continued to teach her until early 1996, and Harteros accompanied Huber-Aulmann on concerts tours in 1993 and 1994 to Russia and the United States, which attracted lots of attention to the singer.
Just before her final exams, she was employed as a permanent member of the ensemble
Musical ensemble
A musical ensemble is a group of people who perform instrumental or vocal music. In classical music, trios or quartets either blend the sounds of musical instrument families or group together instruments from the same instrument family, such as string ensembles or wind ensembles...
at the Schillertheater in
Gelsenkirchen
Gelsenkirchen
Gelsenkirchen is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in the northern part of the Ruhr area. Its population in 2006 was c. 267,000....
and Wuppertal
Wuppertal
Wuppertal is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located in and around the Wupper river valley, and is situated east of the city of Düsseldorf and south of the Ruhr area. With a population of approximately 350,000, it is the largest city in the Bergisches Land...
. After her 1996 exams, she was given a permanent position with the ensemble at the opera in Bonn
Bonn
Bonn is the 19th largest city in Germany. Located in the Cologne/Bonn Region, about 25 kilometres south of Cologne on the river Rhine in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, it was the capital of West Germany from 1949 to 1990 and the official seat of government of united Germany from 1990 to 1999....
.
In the summer of 1999, she won the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition
BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition
BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition is a competition for opera and art singers held every two years....
, which led to many invitations for concerts and guest performances. This was the major breakthrough for her career: since then, she has appeared as a guest at all the major world opera houses, including Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, Lyon
Lyon
Lyon , is a city in east-central France in the Rhône-Alpes region, situated between Paris and Marseille. Lyon is located at from Paris, from Marseille, from Geneva, from Turin, and from Barcelona. The residents of the city are called Lyonnais....
, Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Paris
Opéra Bastille
L'Opéra Bastille ' is a modern opera house in Paris, France. It is the home base of the Opéra national de Paris and was designed to replace the Palais Garnier, which is nowadays mainly used for ballet performances....
, Hamburg
Hamburg State Opera
The Hamburg State Opera is one of the leading opera companies in Germany.Opera in Hamburg dates back to 2 January 1678 when the "Opern-Theatrum" was inaugurated with a performance of a biblical Singspiel by Johann Theile...
, Vienna
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
(Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
), Munich, Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...
and Berlin (Deutsche Oper), as well as the Salzburger Festspiele. She has also given concerts and Lieder recitals all over Germany, as well as in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
, Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, London, Edinburgh
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Vicenza
Vicenza
Vicenza , a city in north-eastern Italy, is the capital of the eponymous province in the Veneto region, at the northern base of the Monte Berico, straddling the Bacchiglione...
and Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv , officially Tel Aviv-Yafo , is the second most populous city in Israel, with a population of 404,400 on a land area of . The city is located on the Israeli Mediterranean coastline in west-central Israel. It is the largest and most populous city in the metropolitan area of Gush Dan, with...
. She sang the title role in a new production of Händel's Alcina at the opera festival in Munich in 2005.
Her repertoire includes the roles of Mimì (La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
), Desdemona
Desdemona
Desdemona is a character in William Shakespeare's play Othello.Desdemona may also refer to:People* Desdemona , a soprano role in the 1816 opera Otello by Gioachino Rossini...
(Otello
Otello
Otello is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare's play Othello. It was Verdi's penultimate opera, and was first performed at the Teatro alla Scala, Milan, on February 5, 1887....
), Micaëla (Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
), Eva (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
), Elisabeth (Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
), Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro), Arabella (Arabella
Arabella
Arabella is a lyric comedy or opera in 3 acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. It was first performed on 1 July 1933, at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater....
), Alice Ford (Falstaff
Falstaff (opera)
Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his 26 operas to be a comedy...
), and Alcina.
She sang her first Violetta in La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
in 2004 and her first Amelia in Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra
Simon Boccanegra is an opera with a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Simón Bocanegra by Antonio García Gutiérrez....
in 2005 with San Diego Opera.
Sources
- List of reviews and articles in Opera NewsOpera NewsOpera News is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to support the Metropolitan Opera of New York City...
including, Martin BernheimerMartin BernheimerMartin Bernheimer is an American music critic. He studied at Brown University and the Hochschule für Musik in Munich, along with the famous musicologist Gustave Reese at New York University....
, 'Donna Anja' (cover story) Opera News, March 2004. - Anne MidgetteAnne MidgetteAnne Midgette is an American journalist and classical music critic. Her father was the painter Willard Midgette.Midgette is a 1986 graduate of Yale University. After university, she lived for 11 years in Munich, Germany, reviewing opera, music and art throughout Europe for The Wall Street...
, 'The (New) Women of Figaro', New York Times, September 28, 2003