Anja Strauss, Soprano

Anja Strauss is a multi-faceted performer and has garnered a wealth of operatic experience having performed as Oscar in Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera, Clorinda in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, five different productions as Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel, Eurydice in Offenbach’s Orphèe aux Enfers, Miss Wordsworth in Britten’s Albert Herring, Lauretta in Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi and Papagena in Mozart’s Zauberflöte.

Upcoming roles include Despina in Mozart’s CosÌ fan tutte. She has sung with the opera companies of Sacramento, Stockton Opera Association, Townsend Opera Players Modesto, Golden Gate Opera San Francisco, as well as the German Opera companies of L¸beck, Kiel, Flensburg, Potsdam and Detmold.

Originally from Lübeck, Germany, she has worked with such renowned German orchestras such as the Hamburg Symphony, the Kiel Philharmonic and the Schleswig-Holstein Symphony. She was the featured guest artist at the Millennium’s Gala of the Mozart Orchestra Hamburg and performed in a Gala Concert at the Teatro Bramante Urbania in Italy. Recently she presented a selection of Mozart’s Concert Arias with the Palo Alto Chamber Orchestra, which she will perform again with the CMC Orchestra as the winner of the San Francisco CMC Faculty Competion

A passionate Lied Singer Ms. Strauss has performed in recitals at Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall and the Goethe Institute in New York City, the Wagner Society in San Francisco and the Olympic Music Festival in Seattle. This season she gave a recital presented by the Mozart Society of California in Carmel.

In addition to operas and concert works, Ms. Strauss has performed a vast repertoire of sacred music, ranging from Bach and Vivaldi to Respighi and Lili Boulanger. She has toured Germany, Poland, Italy and Slovenia, singing the solo parts of Bach’s B Minor Mass, Mozart’s Requiem and C Minor Mass, Haydn’s Seasons, Fauré’s Requiem and the Ein Deutsches Requiem by Brahms. Other highlights include a performance of Mozart’s Requiem for the September 11 Commemoration at Lincoln Center in New York City and the recording of the Petite Messe Solennelle by Rossini under her maiden name Anja Burmeister for the label Dabringhaus und Grimm.

Anja Strauss graduated from the Juilliard School in New York City and has been chosen to sing at the Master classes of Christa Ludwig, Bernd Weikl, Ubbaldo Fabbri, Elly Ameling and Barbara Bonney. Ms. Strauss lives with her husband, violinist Axel Strauss, in San Francisco.

April 2005