In her first-ever appearance at the Opera House, Budapest, the world-famous star soprano will perform songs by Debussy, Dvořák, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Richard Strauss, as well as excerpts from operas by Tchaikovsky, Leoncavallo, and Offenbach. The artist is accompanied on the piano by Pavel Nebolsin. The programme also features mezzo-soprano Elena Maximova and violinist Kurt Mitterfellner. The main sponsor of the event is Szerencsejáték Zrt.
In an illustrious career spanning nearly three decades, Anna Netrebko has become arguably a prominent performer of the first decades of the 21st century as a regular performer at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, and the Royal Opera House in London. Her rich repertoire includes almost all of the iconic female characters of opera literature, whom she portrays with great success both live and on recordings.
Born in 1971 in Krasnodar, southern Russia, the singer made her debut at the age of 22 after graduating from the St. Petersburg Conservatory as Susanna in the performance of Le nozze di Figaro at the Mariinsky Theater in Moscow under the direction of Valery Gergiev. A year later, she debuted in the United States in the female title role of Ruslan and Lyudmila at the San Francisco Opera, where she was a regular guest in the following seasons in the second half of the 1990s. In 2002, she appeared on stage with the company of the MET in the role of Natasha in Prokofiev's opera War and Peace, and in the same year, she got her real international breakthrough with the role of Donna Anna in the performance of Don Giovanni at the Salzburg Festival, conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt. The highly successful performance was followed by an exclusive record contract with Deutsche Grammophon and a whole series of invitations from prestigious opera houses around the world.
Anna Netrebko's prestigious professional accolades include three Grammy nominations and the UK Classical BRIT Award for "Singer of the Year" and "Female Artist of the Year". In 2017, she was awarded the title of Chamber Singer of Austria and won the "Best Female Singer" award at the International Opera Awards. Her latest album, Amata dalle tenebre, featuring arias by Verdi, Wagner, Strauss, Puccini, Cilea, and Purcell, was released in November 2021.
The collaboration between Anna Netrebko and the Hungarian State Opera goes back several years: in August 2017 the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra participated in the gala evening of the world-famous soprano and her husband Yusif Eyvazov at the Waldbühne in Berlin, accompanied by a large-scale television broadcast. Afterwards, the couple performed the main roles in a concert version of Andrea Chénier at the Erkel Theatre in December 2017. In 2021, Netrebko and Eyvazov visited Budapest again as guests of Müpa, and the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra, Chorus and Children's Chorus once again took part in the concert performance of Tosca.
Anna Netrebko's aria and song recital at the Opera House on September 25 will include songs by Debussy, Dvořák, Rachmaninoff, Rimsky-Korsakov, and Richard Strauss, as well as arias from Cilea's Adriana Lecouvreur, Charpentier's Louise, Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades, Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, Saint-Saëns' Samson et Dalila, and Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann.
Anna Netrebko's partner for the evening is pianist Pavel Nebolsin. The young Russian talent, who has won numerous international awards, has been working with the opera singers of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow for more than a decade, and since 2017 he has been a regular contributor to the performances of the Netrebko–Eyvazov couple. Also appearing is Russian mezzo-soprano Elena Maximova, who during her two-decade career has been a recurring guest at the Bavarian, Berlin and Vienna State Operas, the Royal Opera House in London, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and 17-year-old Swiss violinist Kurt Mitterfellner.
