Anna Netrebko

Born in 1971 in Krasnodar, Russia, Anna Netrebko Netrebko studied vocal performance at the St Petersburg Conservatory. While auditioning for the Mariinsky Theatre, she was spotted by Valery Gergiev, who became her vocal mentor and she made her operatic stage debut at the Mariinsky, aged 22, singing Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. One year later, she made her US debut at the San Francisco Opera and after a triumphant Salzburg Festival debut in 2002 as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni, she caught the attention of the international opera world. She made her debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera in 2002, becoming the only soprano to have opened the season in three consecutive years at the house. She appears at the Vienna State Opera every season as well and became an Austrian citizen in 2006. Netrebko has performed with nearly all the world's great opera companies, displaying consummate skill and naturalness as she inhabits each new role. These include her La Scala debut in 2011 as Donna Anna; her role debut as Verdi's Lady Macbeth at the Bavarian State Opera in 2014; and her role debut as Elsa in Lohengrin, alongside Piotr Beczala in the title role, conducted by Christian Thielemann at the Dresden Semperoper in 2016.