Anna Prohaska - Anna Prohaska - Great Recordings (2022)

Anna Prohaska has drawn comparison with Anna Netrebko and other leading sopranos, owing to the beauty, warmth, and power of her voice. Indeed, critics 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 an extensive range of operatic roles and her concert and recital repertoire is equally broad.

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 mother and her brother Daniel are singers, and her 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, and she began vocal studies at 14 with conductor Eberhard Kloke. At the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, she continued vocal studies with Brenda Mitchell, Norma Sharp, and Wolfram Rieger. Prohaska was 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.

Prohaska appeared at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden (Berlin State Opera) in 2005 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 under Franz Welser-Möst in 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. Prohaska's other roles have included Poppea in Handel's Agrippina, Blonde in Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio, and Anne Truelove in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. Her concert and recital repertoire offers works by Dowland, Purcell, Haydn, Mahler, Wolf, Luigi Nono, and many others.

In 2011, Prohaska signed with Deutsche Grammophon and released Sirène, her first recital disc for the label featuring works by Mahler, Debussy, and Dowland, among others. She has also recorded for the Alpha, Accent, and Wergo labels. On Alpha, she has released two albums, both to critical success: Serpent & Fire in 2016 and Paradise Lost in 2020. ~ Robert Cummings