About this Artist
Grammy-winning mezzo-soprano ANNE SOFIE VON OTTER is one of today’s most recorded artists with an unrivalled discography built across a career spanning more than three decades at the very top of the profession. A lengthy and exclusive relationship with Deutsche Grammophon produced a wealth of acclaimed recordings as well as a collaboration with pop legend Elvis Costello on For the Stars. Her first recording with Naïve Classique, Love Songs, with renowned jazz pianist Brad Mehldau, was released in 2010 and was followed by Grammy-nominated Sogno Barocco with Leonardo García-Alarcón and Cappella Mediterranea. Her most recent recording, Douce France, received a Grammy in 2015 for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album.
Considered the superlative Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier) of her generation, Anne Sofie von Otter has appeared in the role at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper, Opéra National de Paris, and the Metropolitan Opera. She recorded the role for DVD (DG) with Wiener Staatsoper under the late Carlos Kleiber, and on CD (EMI) with Bernard Haitink and the Staatskapelle Dresden. Other recorded highlights from her earlier operatic repertoire include Le nozze di Figaro under James Levine, Idomeneo, La clemenza di Tito, and Orfeo ed Euridice under John Eliot Gardiner, Handel’s Ariodante and Hercules under Marc Minkowski, and Ariadne auf Naxos under the late Giuseppe Sinopoli.
An ever-evolving repertoire has played a key role in sustaining Anne Sofie von Otter’s international reputation as an operatic force. Recent roles include Leocadia Begbick (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny) at the Royal Opera House under Marc Wigglesworth, Clytemnestre (Iphigénie en Aulide) in Pierre Audi’s production for De Nederlandse Opera conducted by Marc Minkowski (available on DVD), Geneviève (Pelléas et Mélisande) under Philippe Jordan for Opéra National de Paris (available on DVD), Countess Geschwitz (Lulu) at the Metropolitan Opera conducted by Fabio Luisi, as well as Niklausse in Christoph Marthaler’s production of Les contes d’Hoffmann at Madrid’s Teatro Real. She has appeared as Baba the Turk (The Rake’s Progress) at Theater an der Wien under the late Nikolaus Harnoncourt and as Waltraute (Die Götterdämmerung) at both Deutsche Oper Berlin and Wiener Staatsoper under Sir Simon Rattle.
A busy concert schedule takes Anne Sofie von Otter to all corners of the world, where she has recently appeared with Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle, the New York Philharmonic under Alan Gilbert, the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Daniele Gatti, and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under Sakari Oramo. For the recent Wagner bicentenary she performed Wesendonck Lieder with Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse under Marc Minkowski and also with the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt under Paavo Järvi, and she appeared with Jonas Kaufmann and the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by the late Claudio Abbado for a televised performance of Das Lied von der Erde on the one hundredth anniversary of Mahler’s death.
Current season plans include concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra (Eschenbach), the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Minkowski), and the London Philharmonic Orchestra (Jurowski), and she appears with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Lintu) performing new and specially commissioned arrangements of Sibelius songs on the 150th anniversary of Sibelius’ birth. On the opera stage she makes her role debut as Jenny in Keith Warner’s new production of Die Dreigroschenoper at Theater an der Wien, and she creates the role of Leonora in the world premiere of Thomas Adès’ The Exterminating Angel at the Salzburg Festival. Future plans include the principal role in Autumn Sonata, a new opera by Finnish composer Sebastian Fagerlund to be premiered in September 2017 with a libretto based on the eponymous film by Ingmar Bergman.
Visit annesofievonotter.com.