ANNA NETREBKO

Anna Netrebko is no longer just the darling of the opera world: she is enchanting audiences around the globe while continuing to cultivate the respect and admiration of opera’s most devoted and demanding fans. Her beautiful, dark, and distinctive voice, together with her elegant and alluring stage presence, have prompted critics to hail the Russian soprano as “Audrey Hepburn with a voice,” and “a singer who simply has it all: a voice of astounding purity, precision, and scope, extensive dynamic and tonal range, imagination, insight, and wit – all combined with a dazzling charisma that makes it all but impossible to look away when she is performing.”

Since her triumphant Salzburg Festival debut in 2002 as Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Anna Netrebko has gone on to appear with nearly all of the world’s great opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera, the San Francisco Opera, London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Vienna State Opera, the Paris Opera, the Zurich Opera, the Berlin State Opera, and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera. She also frequently returns to the Kirov Opera at the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg (where she made her stage debut as Susanna in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro) to collaborate with her longtime mentor, conductor Valery Gergiev.

Anna Netrebko made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2002 as Natasha in Prokofiev’s War and Peace, a role she has also sung at London’s Covent Garden, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, and Madrid’s Teatro Real. Ms. Netrebko’s other signature roles include Mimi in Puccini’s La boheme; Violetta in Verdi’s La traviata; Giulietta in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Elvira in his I puritani, and Amina in his La sonnambula; Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Susanna in his Nozze di Figaro; Norina in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Adina in his L’elisir d’amore, and the title role in his Lucia di Lammermoor; the title role in Massenet’s Manon; and Juliette in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette.

Ms. Netrebko also appears regularly in concerts and recitals throughout the world, both in revered concert halls such as London’s Royal Albert Hall and New York’s Carnegie Hall, and in arenas in front of tens of thousands of people. Her outdoor concerts with Plácido Domingo and Rolando Villazón at Berlin’s Waldbühne on the eve of the 2006 World Cup Final and at Vienna’s Schönbrunn Palace before the 2008 Euro Championship Final were both televised live and watched by millions of people around the world (the former being available from Deutsche Grammophon on DVD and Blu-ray Disc).

An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon recording artist, Anna Netrebko boasts an extensive discography that includes solo albums, complete opera recordings, and DVDs. Her solo discs for the venerable label – Opera Arias, Sempre Libera, Russian Album, and Souvenirs – have all been bestsellers, as have her full-length opera recordings La traviata, Le nozze di Figaro, La boheme, and I Capuleti e i Montecchi. Highlights from Ms. Netrebko’s videography include DVD and Blu-ray discs of La traviata, Le nozze di Figaro, I puritani, and Manon; a feature film release of La boheme directed by Robert Dornhelm; and a DVD of music videos, titled Anna Netrebko: The Woman, The Voice. To date, all of her solo albums have earned platinum status in Germany and Austria. Her recording Duets, with her frequent stage partner, tenor Rolando Villazón, claimed the top spot on the Billboard classical chart shortly after its release in the U.S., and in Europe Duets set a record for the best debut ever for a classical album, climbing to the top of the pop charts in several countries.

Further confirming her status as “the reigning new diva of the early 21st century,” in 2007 Anna Netrebko became the first opera singer ever to be named to the TIME 100 list – Time magazine’s list of the most influential people in the world. That same year she serenaded film director Martin Scorsese on the CBS broadcast of the 30th Annual Kennedy Center Honors, and in 2008 she performed alongside Andrea Bocelli on the BBC telecast of the Classical BRIT Awards. Ms. Netrebko has been profiled in numerous glossy magazines, including Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Town & Country, to name but a few. She has also been featured on television shows such as ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, CBS’s 60 Minutes, and Germany’s Wetten, dass..?, and documentaries on her have been televised in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Russia, and Switzerland.

Anna Netrebko’s other honors and awards include Grammy nominations for her recordings Violetta and Russian Album, Musical America’s 2008 “Musician of the Year,” Germany’s prestigious Bambi Award, the U.K.’s Classical BRIT Awards for “Singer of the Year” and “Female Artist of the Year,” and seven German Echo Klassik awards. In 2005, she was awarded the Russian State Prize – the country’s highest award in the field of arts and literature – by President Vladimir Putin, and in 2008 the President bestowed on her the title of “People’s Artist of Russia.”

Ms. Netrebko began the 2009-10 season with a concert tour of Scandinavia alongside tenor Massimo Giordano and conductor Emmanuel Villaume. In September, she opened the Mariinsky Theatre’s 227th season, performing the title role in Tchaikovsky’s final opera, Iolanta. That same month saw the American theatrical release of the feature film version of La boheme, in which the Russian soprano stars as Mimi. Anna Netrebko returned to Paris in October, first for a concert with Mr. Giordano at the Salle Pleyel and then for performances as Adina in L’elisir d’amore at the Paris Opera. At the Metropolitan Opera this season, she sang Antonia in a new Bartlett Sher production of Les contes d’Hoffmann and sings Mimi in the Met’s beloved Zeffirelli production of La boheme. American audiences saw Ms. Netrebko on both big and small screens in December: first when she performed in the Met’s “Live In HD” movie theater broadcast of Hoffmann, and then when PBS’s “Great Performances” aired La boheme, the movie, nationally. Between her Met engagements, the soprano made her Royal Festival Hall debut in London in a concert with Dmitri Hvorostovsky on January 18. In a rare recital appearance, she performs a program of Russian songs with pianist Daniel Barenboim at the Berlin State Opera on March 29. As the season nears its end, Anna Netrebko returns to the Vienna State Opera to portray a quartet of favorite opera characters – Mimi in La boheme, Elvira in I puritani, the title role in Manon, and Micaela in Carmen – over a period of just six weeks. She ends the season performing in a new production of Massenet’s Manon at London’s Royal Opera House.

Web: www.annanetrebko.com