Otter, Anne Sofie von
Otter, Anne Sofie von
Otter, Anne Sofie von, outstanding Swedish mezzo-soprano; b. Stockholm, May 9, 1955. She began her training at the Stockholm Musikhögskolan, and then studied with Erik Werba in Vienna and Geoffrey Parsons in London, and later with Vera Rozsa. In 1982 she joined the Basel Opera; in 1984 she sang at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. She made her first appearance at London’s Covent Garden in 1985 as Cherubino; that same year, she made her U.S. debut as soloist in Mozart’s C-minor Mass with the Chicago Sym. Orch. In 1987 she sang at La Scala in Milan and at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. In 1988 she appeared as Cherubino at the Metropolitan Opera in N.Y. In 1989 she made her first appearance at the Salzburg Festival as Marguerite in La Damnation de Faust with Solti and the Chicago Sym. Orch. In 1992 she returned to Salzburg to sing Ramiro. In 1996 she sang in the Metropolitan Opera Gala, and returned there in 1997 as Mozart’s Sesto. On May 6,1998, she made her Carnegie Hall recital debut in N.Y. She sang widely as a soloist with major orchs. and as a recitalist. Her other operatic roles include Gluck’s Orfeo, Mozart’s Idamantes and Dorabella, Tchaikovsky’s Olga, and R. Strauss’s Octavian. Otter was acclaimed for her extraordinary vocal mastery, from opera to lieder.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire