Anna Prohaska

Anna Prohaska has drawn comparison with Anna Netrebko and other leading sopranos, owing to the beauty, warmth, and power of her voice. Indeed, critics across the globe have noted the ravishing character of Prohaska's tone, from its secure and potent upper notes to its dark middle register and her seemingly effortless manner of delivery. She sings a range of operatic roles, too, from Poppea in Handel's Agrippina and Blonde in Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio to Oscar in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera and Anne Truelove in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. Her concert and recital repertory is equally broad, taking in works by Dowland, Purcell, Haydn, Schubert, Mahler, Fauré, Wolf, Berg, Honegger, Luigi Nono, and many others. Prohaska has performed throughout the U.K., Europe, U.S., and Japan, often with such conductors as Barenboim, Abbado, Rattle, and Jansons. Also, she regularly appears in recital with her accompanist, pianist Eric Schneider. Prohaska has recorded for DG and Accentus Music.

Anna Prohaska was born into a musical family in Neu-Ulm, Germany, in 1983. Her great-grandfather, Carl Prohaska, was a respected composer and her grandfather was conductor Felix Prohaska; her Irish-English mother and her brother Daniel are singers and her Austrian father an opera director. Raised in Vienna, Anna began piano and ballet lessons at age six.

At 11 she and her family moved to Berlin. She began vocal studies there at 14 with conductor Eberhard Kloke. Later on at the Berlin-based Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, she continued vocal studies with Brenda Mitchell, Norma Sharp, and Wolfram Rieger.

Prohaska was also busy during her student years on the concert stage, making her first professional appearances at 16 at the North-Rhine Westphalia and Potsdam music festivals. In 2002 she debuted at the Komische Oper Berlin as Flora in Britten's The Turn of The Screw.

Prohaska had further training at the Aix-en-Provence Festival's Académie Européenne de Musique in 2003 and later on at the International Handel Academy Karlsruhe. In 2005 she appeared at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Berlin State Opera) in the premiere of Seven Attempted Escapes From Silence, a contemporary opera fashioned by seven different composers and librettist Jonathan Safran Foer, author of the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In 2006, Prohaska sang Frasquita in a Barenboim-led performance of Bizet's Carmen at the Berlin State Opera, and the following year she became a member of the company. Since 2007, Prohaska has appeared regularly with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

In 2008 Prohaska debuted as the First Wood Nymph at the Salzburg Festival in a Franz Welser-Möst-led production of Dvorák's Rusalka. Prohaska gave the 2009 Berlin premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's Mnemosyne, with the Berlin Philharmonic under Matthias Pintscher. Prohaska's 2010 live performance in the Berg Lulu Suite with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra under Abbado was issued on an acclaimed Accentus DVD. In 2011 Prohaska's first recital disc for DG, Sirène, was issued. It featured works by Mahler, Debussy, Dowland, Lawes, and others. 2011 was also the year she signed an exclusive contract with the label.