Anja Harteros

Harteros was born in Bergneustadt, North Rhine-Westphalia, to a Greek father and a German mother 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. In 1986, she started voice training under Astrid Huber-Aulmann in Gummersbach, concurrently with her schooling. In 1990, she began studies with Wolfgang Kastorp, conductor and répétiteur at the Cologne Opera, who accompanied her in a series of concerts and later became her husband.[1] Her first performances were in music institute concerts and in a school production of The Marriage of Figaro in 1990, as the Countess. In 1992 she gave her first concert at the Kantonsschule Schwyz in Switzerland.

After completing high school in 1991, she continued her voice studies 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 much attention to the singer. Just before her final exams, she was employed as an ensemble member of the Schillertheater NRW. After her 1996 exams, she joined the ensemble of the Theater Bonn.

Harteros achieved the major breakthrough for her career when she won the Cardiff Singer of the World competition in the summer of 1999, becoming the first German singer to win the prize.[2] Peter Jonas, director of the Bavarian State Opera, who was in the jury, recognised her talent and signed her to the company with the first role being Agathe in Der Freischütz. In the same year, she debuted at the Vienna State Opera as Mimì (La bohème). She has also appeared at other major opera houses, including the Oper Frankfurt, Opéra National de Lyon, De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam, Semperoper, Opéra Bastille, Hamburg State Opera, Cologne Opera, and Berlin's Deutsche Oper, as well as the Salzburg Festival.

In October 2003, Harteros debuted at the New York Metropolitan Opera in the role of Countess Almaviva, and was also featured as Donna Anna in Don Giovanni in the same season.[3][4]

In 2004, she sang her first Violetta in La traviata with the San Diego Opera,[5] where she returned the next year for her first Amelia in Simon Boccanegra.[6] In the 2004/05 season, she made four role debuts at the Bavarian State Opera, including Desdemona (Otello), Arabella (Arabella), Alice Ford (Falstaff), and the title role in a new production of Händel's Alcina as a part of the Munich Opera Festival. In 2006, she portrayed Elettra in Idomeneo at the Salzburg Festival,[7] and Desdemona in Vera Nemirova's new staging of Otello at the Semperoper in Dresden.[8]

In 2007, she sang the Bruckner Te Deum with Liliana Nikiteanu, Christian Elsner, Franz-Josef Selig, the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, WDR Rundfunkchor Köln, NDR Chor, under the direction of Sir Gilbert Levine. The concert, which was performed in Cologne Cathedral was broadcast by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk (West German television), 3sat[9] and on PBS stations nationwide in the U.S. In 2008, she was featured in the opening gala of Oslo Opera House,[10] and in the first opera production in the house, Don Carlo, debuting in the role of Elisabetta di Valois.[11]

In February 2011, she debuted in Leonora in concert performances of Verdi's Il trovatore at the Kölner Philharmonie.[12] Withdrawing from the planned debuting performances as the Marschallin in Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier in San Diego,[13] she assumed the role in Munich and then in Vienna later in the year.[14][15]

In 2015, Harteros with Jonas Kaufmann and Antonio Pappano collaborated on a studio recording of Verdi's Aida.[16]

Harteros won the Festival Award of the Munich Opera Festival for her four role debuts. She was voted Female Singer of the Year (Sängerin des Jahres) by the Opernwelt magazine in 2009, and again in 2017.[17][18] In April 2010, she received the first edition of Cologne Opera Award (Kölner Opernpreis).[19] She won the Best Female Singer in the 2015 International Opera Awards.[20]

In 2007, she was appointed the title Bavarian Kammersängerin. In 2013, she was awarded the Bavarian Europa-Medaille. In 2018, she was awarded European Cultural Award Taurus, yet she was absent from the ceremony at the Dresden Frauenkirche on 8 June 2018.[21] In the same month, she received the Bavarian Order of Merit.[22]

• Bella Voce (2006). Pinchas Steinberg, Wiener Symphoniker. (RCA Red Seal)
• Von ewiger Liebe (2009). Wolfram Rieger. (Berlin Classics)

• Official website
• Anja Harteros, soprano at Operabase
• Anja Harteros (Soprano) at Bach Cantatas Website
• Anja Harteros at Bavarian State Opera (in German)
• Anja Harteros at Zemsky Green Artists Management
• Anja Harteros at Seifert agency (in German) archived on 2007-09-30