Anna CaterinaAntonacci

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  • Soprano

About Anna Caterina

Established as one of the finest sopranos of her generation, Anna Caterina won prestigious prizes at the Voci Verdiane, Callas and Pavarotti competitions.

She has been honoured with the ‘Chevalier de l’Ordre National de la Légion d’honneur’ by the French Republic, which is the highest national distinction one can receive. Her first recording Era la Notte for the Naïve label received great acclaim and she has also recorded L’Alba separa dalla luce l’ombra for Wigmore Live, with her pianist Donald Sulzen, featuring songs by Tosti, Cilea, and Hahn.

Anna Caterina was elected one of the ‘Accademici Effettivi’ by the distinguished panellists of the General Assembly of the Academicians of Santa Cecilia in 2021.

Her recent highlights include performances of the role Madame de Croissy in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites in a production by Emma Dante at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, as well as the Bayerische Staatsoper. In the upcoming 2024/25 season, Anna Caterina looks forward to a recital at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecila with Donald Sulzen and a revival of her role as Madame de Croissy in Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites, this time at the Teatro la Fenice.

Anna Caterina is based in Verbier, Switzerland

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Contact

For availability and general enquiries:

Kate Robson

Kate Robson

Assistant Artist Manager

Representation

General management with Askonas Holt



Follow Anna Caterina

Season Highlights

Dec 2024
Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
Recital with Donald Sulzen
Jun 2025 - Jul 2025
Teatro la Fenice, Venice
Dialogues des Carmelites (Madame de Croissy) Frédéric Chaslin (Conductor) Emma Dante (Director)

Selected Repertoire

BERLIOZ

La Damnation de Faust   •   Les Troyens (Cassandre)

BIZET

Carmen

BRITTEN

Gloriana

CHERUBINI

Medea

FAURE

Pénélope

GLUCK

Armide   •   Alceste   •   Iphigenie en Tauride

MASSENET

Don Quichotte   •   Werther (Charlotte)

MONTEVERDI

Incoronazione di Poppea (Poppea and Nerone)   •   Orfeo

OFFENBACH

La Grande-Duchesse de Gérolstein   •   La Périchole

PAISIELLO

Nina pazza per amore

POULENC

La voix humaine

RAVEL

L’heure espagnole

ROSSINI

Ermione

WOLF-FERRARI

Il segreto di Susanna

Press

  • Medea (Benda)

    Auditorium Niccolò Paganini, Parma
    Feb 2024
    • [...] a incarnare Medea c’era l’arcidivinissima Anna Caterina Antonacci, le cui rare apparizioni sono sempre epifanie gloriose [...] [translated] [...] to embody Medea there was the archdivine Anna Caterina Antonacci, whose rare appearances are always glorious epiphanies [...]

  • Dialogues des carmélites (Poulenc)

    Teatro dell'Opera di Roma
    Oct 2022
    • Faced with this very great performance stands, legendary, mythical, that of Anna Caterina Antonacci: it is impossible not to be crushed by this incredible vocal personality. The particularly elaborate staging of the great scene of agony must be read here as a highlighting of a kind of monument. A monument to expression, to moving accents, to the truth of an incarnation that leaves you speechless. She knows how to work on the flaws of a voice which obviously also shows the outrage of the years, and turns them into incredible assets.

    • Great protagonist of the scene, Anna Caterina Antonacci in the guise of the Prioress Madame de Croissy. Antonacci brought the immense baggage of her infinite career to the internship and was able to face a complex character like that of the Prioress with profound awareness. Furthermore, she did not bother to hide the harshness of a vocal instrument that was no longer very young, thus making her interpretation even more realistic: the discrepancies between the registers, so demonized in the bel canto works, made the inner conflicts of the Prioress more obvious, leaving the audience literally struck by the scene.

    • Anna Caterina Antonacci plays Madame De Croissy, the prioress of the Carmelites who will die from the terror of death itself. Although the role is for contralto, her performance, too, was excellent both from a vocal and (perhaps above all) scenic point of view. The finale of the first act is certainly one of the most engaging moments of the entire opera, and the Italian singer did not disappoint.

  • Recital with Francis Libetta

    Festival Della Valle D'Itria
    Jul 2020
    • In Antonacci's singing, everything is meaningful, every phrase finds its rightful place in the narrative. Antonacci's singing is made of intelligence and exploration, unique, highly personal and fascinating… Triumphant success and the unexpected encore: Carmen's Habanera as never heard before; Antonacci attacks in pianissimo and maintains a collected intimacy that captures the true nature of the music and the character to the end.

    • Antonacci captures the tragic nature of the two women and expresses it with an inner strength that grabs the spectator by some mysterious magnetism that cannot be explained. Seemingly she does nothing special, but she does it very well, she is essential and simple, without a grain of superfluity creeping into that essentiality.

    • Anna Caterina Antonacci agreed to an encore, the Habanera from Carmen, which she sang by distilling it with ease giving the piece a devastating force making the audience go wild. Strange choice, one might say, for Carmen is the one who gives up! But at the time, could one reason? Antonacci’s magic had worked again!

  • Il signore delle formiche

    (Film)
    Sep 2022
    • Anna Caterina Antonacci: 'What a joy to get out of the comfort zone'. “Debuting in cinema was madness, but recklessness paid off” says the opera singer who, after the parenthesis of “The lord of the ants”, opens the season of the Rome Opera. And here she tells her journey, including the moment "On the old farm".

  • Recital with Donald Sulzen

    Wigmore Hall
    Feb 2020
    • With a sly smile and a knowing wink, Antonacci had her audience in the palm of her hand within her first few sentences. Not that her program was an audience-pleaser by any means, understood of mostly unfamiliar song cycles by Respighi, Britten, Poulenc and Nadia Boulanger... Antonacci's customary textual acuity and charismatic stage presence made the strongest possible case for these unjustly neglected works.

  • La voix humaine (Poulenc)

    Teatro Petruzzelli, Bari
    Oct 2019
    • To best convey this evocative idea however, it was necessary to have a true, authentic star such as Anna Caterina Antonacci, a lead in Bari who gave a splendid performance. The dramatic monologue was excellently rendered by the soprano, originating from Lecce, who in her multifaceted and extraordinary international career has made artistic research and the all-round study of the roles she plays one of her strengths.