Anna Netrebko

Since her triumphant Salzburg Festival debut in 2002 in a performance of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Netrebko has gone on to appear with nearly all the world’s great opera companies, including the Metropolitan Opera (the Met), San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, London’s Royal Opera House, Milan’s La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Zurich Opera, Berlin State Opera, and Munich’s Bavarian State Opera. As well as Mozart’s Susanna, Netrebko’s other signature roles,past and present, include Puccini’s Mimì (La bohème) and Manon Lescaut; Verdi’s Violetta (La traviata), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Leonora (Il Trovatore), and Giovanna d’Arco; Bellini’s Giulietta (I Capuleti e i Montecchi), Elvira (I puritani), and Amina (La sonnambula); Mozart’s Donna Anna (Don Giovanni); Donizetti’s Norina (Don Pasquale), Adina (L’elisir d’amore), Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor), and Anna Bolena; the title role in Massenet’s Manon; Juliette in Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette; Tchaikovsky’s Tatiana (Eugene Onegin) and Iolanta, and Elsa in Wagner’s Lohengrin.

Netrebko also appears extensively in concerts throughout the world, both in famous music venues such as New York’s Carnegie Hall and in arenas filled with tens of thousands of people. Her outdoor concerts—in which she has shared the stage with artists including Plácido Domingo and Dmitri Hvorostovsky, at places ranging from Berlin’s Waldbühne to Moscow’s Red Square—are often internationally televised events. She was a fixture at the Salzburg Festival, she has headlined the famous Last Night of the Proms in London, and has appeared in the Metropolitan Opera’s Live in HD series each year since its launch during the 2006-7 season. She also frequently appears in recitals with the world’s leading artists, including Daniel Barenboim—you can find some of these performances in our catalog.

In 2015, she received an eleven-minute ovation for her season-opening appearance at La Scala, where she sang in the title role of Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco, and made her sold-out solo recital debut at the Metropolitan Opera and a triumphant first foray into Wagner as Elsa at Dresden’s Semperoper. The soprano launched 2016-17 with her first solo release in three years: Verismo, which captures her voice in full bloom in performances of the most iconic arias and duets of Italian opera. This season showcased four of her now-signature roles, namely Puccini’s Manon Lescaut, in a North American role debut at the Metropolitan Opera and house debut at Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre; Tchaikovsky’s Tatiana, reprised at the Metropolitan Opera and in a house role debut at the Paris Opera; Verdi’s Lady Macbeth, in a return to Martin Kušej’s production at the Bavarian State Opera; and Verdi's Leonora in a new production of Il Trovatore at the Vienna State Opera. In addition, Netrebko returned to La Scala as Violetta in La traviata, where she sang the one-time signature role out of retirement for three farewell performances in Liliana Cavani’s classic production, and she starred in Cilea’s Adriana Lecouvreur—as featured on Verismo—at the Mariinsky Theatre. In concerts, she made a series of high-profile international appearances with Yusif Eyvazov, in cities including Cologne, Paris, Toronto, and Los Angeles, before returning to New York to headline a pair of star-studded gala events: the annual Richard Tucker Music Foundation Gala and the Metropolitan Opera’s 50th Anniversary Gala, which celebrated half a century in the company’s current home. In 2018, she debuted as Tosca at the Metropolitan Opera in April and performed at the Summer Night Concert Schönbrunn on 31 May. In September, she took part in the inauguration gala concert of Zaryadye Concert Hall in Moscow, which was streamed on medici.tv. 

After a triumphant beginning of 2019 at the Royal Opera House, under the direction of Antonio Pappano—with a performance that has been called “a throwback to the golden age”—she was struck by an intense form of COVID which forced her to clear her schedule. She returned to the stage at the Vienna State Opera with Tosca, then at the Salzburg Festival, as well as, for the first time, at the Verona Arena in Turandot. After a new outbreak of COVID, she had to cancel some performances of Nabucco, but she later became the star of the opening season of La Scala in Milan in December 2021, in Verdi’s Macbeth, conducted by Riccardo Chailly. Due to the tense political situation in Europe, on 1 March 2022, she announced a short period of retirement on her social media, before returning to the stage at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo,  the Philharmonie de Paris, and  the Scala de Milan, where she received a triumphant welcome. After many solo concerts, notably in Madrid, she came back to Vienna in 2022 in the role of Mimi from Puccini’s La Bohème, to replace a production of La Juive starring Sonya Yoncheva and Roberto Alagna, both sick. In December 2022, Anna Netrebko was in Paris in the role of Leonora in La Force du destin, and in Vienna in January 2023, for a production of Aida, together with some great artists, opera stars Elina Garanča and Jonas Kaufmann.

Anna Netrebko boasts an extensive discography that includes solo albums, complete opera recordings, concert repertoire, and live performances. Her solo discs for Deutsche Grammophon—known under the titles of Opera Arias, Sempre Libera, Russian Album, Souvenirs, In the Still of Night, Anna Netrebko: Live at the Metropolitan Opera, and Anna Netrebko: Verdi—have all been best sellers, as have her full-length recordings of La traviata, Le nozze di Figaro, La bohème, I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Giovanna d’Arco, Britten’s War Requiem, and the Stabat Maters of both Pergolesi and Rossini. Highlights from Netrebko’s videography include DVD or Blu-ray discs of Ruslan and Lyudmila, Betrothal in a Monastery, La traviata, Le nozze di Figaro, I puritani, Manon, Lucia di Lammermoor, Don Pasquale, Anna Bolena, and Eugene Onegin; a feature film release of La bohème directed by Robert Dornhelm; and a DVD of music videos, titled Anna Netrebko: The Woman, The Voice. Her CD Duets, with tenor Rolando Villazón, set a record for the best European debut for a classical album, climbing to the top of the pop charts in several countries. Among other recordings and collaboration with artists, she also recorded the album titled Amata dalle tenebre in 2021, with the Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala under the baton of Riccardo Chailly.

Netrebko sang the Olympic Hymn live at the internationally televised opening ceremony of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. In 2007, the year she featured in  the TIME 100 list, she serenaded film director Martin Scorsese on the CBS broadcast of the 30th Annual Kennedy Center Honors, and the following year, she performed on the BBC broadcast of the Classical BRIT Awards alongside Andrea Bocelli. Netrebko has been profiled in numerous magazines, including Vogue, Vanity Fair, and Town & Country. She has also been featured on television shows such as ABC’s Good Morning America, NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, CBS’s 60 Minutes, CNN’s Revealed, and Germany’s Wetten, dass...? Documentaries about her have been televised in Austria, Denmark, Germany, Russia, and Switzerland.

Anna Netrebko’s other honors and awards include Grammy nominations for her recordings Violetta and Russian Album; 2016 Opera News Award; Musical America’s 2008 "Musician of the Year"; Germany’s prestigious Bambi Award; the UK’s Classical BRIT Awards for "Singer of the Year" and "Female Artist of the Year"; and eleven German ECHO Klassik awards. In 2005, she was awarded the Russian State Prize (the country’s highest award in the field of arts and literature), and in 2008, she was given the title of "People’s Artist of Russia". In 2020, she also received the career award in the Victoires de la musique classique. A vivid representation of Netrebko’s stage presence during her performances has been described by Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times: “A soprano with star power in the best sense, a charismatic expressivity that pervades every element of her performance”.

Born in 1971 in Krasnodar, Russia, Anna Netrebko studied vocal performance at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. A passionate advocate for children’s causes, she supports a number of charitable organizations, including SOS-Kinderdorf International and the Russian Children’s Welfare Society. She is a global ambassador for Chopard jewelry. She became a dual citizen of Austria in 2006. Her son, Tiago, was born in 2008, while in November 2013 Anna Netrebko and her husband Erwin Schrott announced their separation. She later married tenor Yusif Eyvazov in 2015, having met in February 2014 during rehearsals for a staging of Manon Lascaut in Rome.