Anna Netrebko

Anna Netrebko began her career over 30 years ago and has since become one of the leading prima donnas of the 21st century. She signed with Deutsche Grammophon in 2003. The program of her first album, Anna Netrebko – Opera Arias (2003), ranged from Mozart's "Padre, germani, addio!" from Idomeneo to Dvořák's "Song to the Moon" from Rusalka. This was followed by Sempre libera and Russian Album, as well as complete recordings of Le nozze di Figaro and La bohème. Further highlights of her DG discography included Souvenirs, In the Still of Night (a recital of Russian songs with Daniel Barenboim), Anna Netrebko: Live at the Metropolitan Opera, and recordings of La traviata, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, and Pergolesi's Stabat Mater. Netrebko's DG videography grew with DVD/Blu-ray releases of La traviata, Le nozze di Figaro, I puritani, Manon, Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale, and Anna Bolena, plus a DVD of music videos: Anna Netrebko: The Woman, The Voice. In 2013, she returned to the studio to record Verdi, an album of solo arias, and demonstrated her affinity for the romantic repertoire with complete recordings of Eugene Onegin, Giovanna d’Arco, and Il trovatore. Other milestones in her recording career include the CD Duets with Rolando Villazón; Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs with Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin (2014); Tchaikovsky’s Iolanta, Macbeth from the Metropolitan Opera, and Don Giovanni from La Scala, Milan (2015); Manon Lescaut in a live recording from the Salzburg Festival (2016); and the album Romanza with her husband, tenor Yusif Eyvazov (2017). In recent years, she has vocally embraced even more demanding operatic roles such as Turandot, Tosca, and Elsa (Lohengrin). The full, darker tones of Anna Netrebko's current voice were particularly evident in her Grammy-nominated DG album Verismo (2016), recorded with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Sir Antonio Pappano, which featured excerpts from Madama Butterfly, Tosca, Manon Lescaut, Adriana Lecouvreur, and Andrea Chénier, among others. In 2021, Amata delle tenebre was released, Netrebko's first classical solo album in five years; it was recorded at La Scala, Milan, with the Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala and its music director Riccardo Chailly. Born in 1971 in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar, Anna Netrebko dedicated herself to singing from a young age. She later studied at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, where she was discovered and thus able to take on smaller roles at the Mariinsky Theatre. After the successful role debut of the 22-year-old singer at this house as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, she was accepted into the ensemble. Netrebko's years in St. Petersburg provided a solid foundation in technique and stage experience. In 1995, she made her US debut at the San Francisco Opera, became a member of its Merola Opera Program for young artists the following year, and soon sang at leading international opera houses. Her portrayal of Donna Anna in Don Giovanni at the 2002 Salzburg Festival secured Netrebko a place among the top ranks of young singers. Since 2002, Netrebko has performed regularly at the Metropolitan Opera – she has embodied no fewer than 22 roles at this house and participated in 15 of its worldwide "Live in HD" cinema broadcasts. In Vienna, where Netrebko has lived for a long time (she became an Austrian citizen in 2006), she performs at the State Opera every season. She also frequently appears as a guest artist at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, La Scala, Milan, the Paris Opéra, and the Arena di Verona. The portraits Netrebko created of the most famous operatic heroines throughout her career bear witness to an exceptionally broad repertoire and remarkable artistic sensibility. Her interpretations include Mozart operas, bel canto masterpieces (including Bellini's La sonnambula and Donizetti's Anna Bolena), French masterpieces (Massenet's Manon and Gounod's Roméo et Juliette), Puccini (from La bohème to Turandot), Verdi (from La traviata to Aida and Macbeth), Verismo works (Giordano's Andrea Chénier and Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur), Tchaikovsky (from Iolanta to Eugene Onegin), and Wagner's Lohengrin. Netrebko's insatiable curiosity regarding the operatic repertoire promises further role debuts in the coming seasons. Her role debuts in recent years include Verdi's Giovanna d’Arco at the opening performance of the 2015/16 season at La Scala, Milan – the work's first performance there since the mid-1860s; Elsa (Lohengrin) at the Dresden Semperoper in 2016 (released the following year as Deutsche Grammophon's first opera recording in Ultra HD 4K); Aida at the Salzburg Festival (2017), Maddalena (Andrea Chénier) at La Scala, Milan (2017), Tosca at the Met (2018), Leonora (La forza del destino) at Covent Garden (2019), Turandot in Munich (2020), Elisabetta (Don Carlo) at the Bolshoi Theatre (2020), and Abigaille (Nabucco) at the Staatstheater Wiesbaden (2023). La Gioconda will follow at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 2024. In addition to her consistently sensational performances at leading international opera houses, Netrebko is also frequently heard in concerts and recitals around the world. Her appearances at the Waldbühne in Berlin and on Red Square in Moscow for the 2006 and 2018 FIFA World Cups, respectively, were broadcast internationally on television. A loving mother herself, she is passionately committed to the needs of underprivileged children and has supported various organizations for this purpose for many years. 06/2023