Alto Anna Larsson comes from a village in the province of Dalarnas Iän in central Sweden. She graduated from the Adolf Fredrik Music Academy in Stockholm and from the age of 17 received private vocal instruction, completing her education at the University College of Opera in the Swedish capital. In 1996 she made her stage debut as God the Mother in the opera The King of Fools by Carl Unander-Scharin. Anna Larsson came to international recognition in 1997 when Claudio Abbado engaged her for performances of the Second Symphony of Gustav Mahler with the Berlin Philharmonic. Since then she has performed the alto parts in Gustav Mahler’s symphonies all over the world, appearing with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics. The span of her concert repertoire is meanwhile much wider, ranging from Monteverdi to the 20th century, which Anna Larsson performs with such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Gustavo Dudamel, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Seiji Ozawa, Simon Rattle, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. On the opera stage, her signature role is Erda in Wagner’s Ring tetralogy; she has performed this role at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, at La Scala in Milan, at the Bavarian Staatsoper, and at the Vienna Staatsoper, among others. Her operatic repertoire also includes Wagner’s Waltraute and Fricka, Saint-Saëns’ Dalila, Gaea in Daphne by Strauss, and Geneviève in Debussy’s Pelléas, which she performed under the baton of Simon Rattle at the Salzburg Easter Festival. Her interpretation of Gluck’s Orfeo at the Royal Opera in Stockholm was distinguished by the magazine Opera’s 2008 prize.
LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on August 19, 2003 in Mahler’s Second Symphony, conducted by Claudio Abbado, who also conducted the Mahler Third in her most recent appearance, on August 19, 2007.
July 2010