Anna Tomowa-Sintow
soprano |
Anna Tomowa-Sintow is undeniably one of the leading vocal stars on the operatic stage today. After her musical training in Sofia, the Bulgarian-born soprano made her debut at the Leipzig Opera. There and later on at the Berlin Staatsoper, she mastered an enormous repertoire ranging from the great lyrical-dramatic roles of Verdi, Puccini and the "Verismo" to the German roles of Mozart, Wagner and Strauss. Ever since her international breakthrough in Verdi's "Requiem" in Paris, Anna Tomowa-Sintow has celebrated triumphs at all the leading opera houses, festivals and concert halls of the world, from the MET to La Scala Milan, the Salzburg Festival (participating there for 19 years), Vienna, Paris, London, Chicago, Athens (Megaron), Berlin, Munich, Madrid, Barcelona, Moscow, Tokyo, etc. and with the most prestigious conductors such as Herbert von Karajan, Carlos Kleiber, Karl Böhm, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, James Levine, Colin Davis, Bernard Haitink, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta and others. She has worked with Herbert von Karajan for seventeen years, a collaboration that gave rise to a uniquely creative and mutually enriching oeuvre on the stage, in the concert hall and in the recording studio.
Her recordings with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras have set standards for generations of singers. Parallel to her stage career, she has also been pursuing an active concert agenda which is documented on CD and film, in addition to her many opera recordings. She received several awards, amongst which two Grammies for her recordings of Ariadne (under James Levine) and Don Giovanni (Donna Anna, under H.v.Karajan) and the Orphée d'or for her recording of Strauss' Four Last Songs and the Capriccio Final Monologue under Herbert von Karajan.
Her performance of Elvira's aria "Ernani, involami" marked a highlight of the MET Centennial Gala which was telecasted live worldwide and was chosen by the magazine Opera News as the best interpretation of the piece ever recorded. During the Verdi year 2001 a stamp was released in the USA featuring her as Desdemona at the Staatsoper Vienna.
"Kammersängerin" of the Vienna and Berlin State Operas, Tomowa-Sintow is renowned for her incomparable artistry and stylistic versatility - whether performing Italian, German or Russian roles. Her vast repertoire includes the leading female parts in almost all Verdi operas, such as Traviata, Aida, Amelia (Ballo & Simone Boccanegra), Leonora (Il trovatore & La forza del destino), Desdemona, Elisabetta (Don Carlo), Puccini's Tosca, Butterfly, Manon Lescaut and Turandot, Bellini's Norma, Mascagni's Santuzza (Cavalleria) and Giordano's Maddalena in Andrea Chenier, Mozart's Figaro Countess, Fiordiligi and Donna Anna (with which she made all of her US debuts - at the MET, San Francisco and Chicago), Wagner's Elisabeth, Elsa and Sieglinde, Tschaikowsky's Tatjana and Jaroslawna in Borodin's Prince Igor; last not least her legendary Strauss interpretations of the Marschallin, Ariadne, Arabella, Capriccio-Madelaine, Ägyptische Helena, Salome and the Kaiserin in "Die Frau ohne Schatten" and Korngold's "das Wunder der Heliane". Most of these operas are documented on CD and film/DVD, together with some of her finest singer colleagues, amongst which Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti, Piero Cappuccilli, Ruggero Raimondi, José Carreras and Sherill Milnes.
Anna Tomowa-Sintow has recently expanded her concert and recital activity and started to also give master classes. In 2007 she sang Sieglinde with triumphant success in a concert version of Walküre's 1st act and together with the NHK Symphony Orchestra she performed Strauss' "Four last songs" in Tokyo (live TV transmission) and closed the year with her very first Christmas concert together with a boy's choir and orchestra. In 2008 she appeared for the first time at the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival with a frenetically cheered recital and subsequent masterclass.
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