Anna Caterina Antonacci

Anna Caterina Antonacci, who comes from Ferrara in Emilia Romagna, completed her vocal training in Bologna. In 1988 she won the Concorso Internazionale Voci Verdiane, the Grand Prix Maria Callas, and the Pavarotti Competition; in 1990 and 2005 she was awarded the Premio Abbiati by the Union of Italian Critics. At the beginning of her career Anna Caterina Antonacci sang both mezzo and soprano roles, devoting herself in particular to the operas of Gioachino Rossini, but for the past ten years she has concentrated on the dramatic soprano repertoire. She has triumphed in her performances of heroines from such operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck as Armide, with which she opened La Scala in Milan’s season in 1996 under Riccardo Muti; Alceste, which she has performed at the Salzburg Festival; and Iphigénie en Tauride, which she sang in the spring of 2015 at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. One of her signature roles is Cassandre from Berlioz’s Les Troyens, which she interpreted in 2003 under John Eliot Gardiner at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and which she has since undertaken at London’s Royal Opera House, La Scala in Milan, and, most recently, this past June, at San Francisco Opera. She has also triumphed as Bizet’s Carmen, the title heroine in La Juive, and Cherubini’s Médée. Antonacci has additionally appeared in Monteverdi’s operas (Poppea at the Bavarian Staatsoper and Nero at the Opéra National de Paris) and as Handel heroines including in Agrippina and Rodelinda. She is moreover dedicated to the art song, focusing on the mélodies of Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Reynaldo Hahn in recitals with the pianist Donald Sulzen.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 5 September 1997 singing in Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater under Riccardo Muti.

August 2015