Anna Netrebko

Born in Krasnodar in 1971 and trained at the St Petersburg Conservatory, Anna Netrebko entered the Mariinsky company in 1994 and sang Mozart, bel canto and Russian repertory. She sang Donna Anna at the Salzburg Festival in 2002 and has appeared at the Vienna State Opera, the Metropolitan, La Scala and Covent Garden. She expanded her repertoire into Verdi and verismo — Leonora, Lady Macbeth, Aida, Adriana Lecouvreur, La Gioconda. An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist from 2003, she has recorded across both halves of that career, and was the first classical musician named to Time's list of the hundred most influential people. She passed through the Merola programme in San Francisco and began working professionally in 1994. Violetta, Tatyana and Elsa in Lohengrin are hers as well, and at the Paris Opera she has sung Giulietta in I Capuleti e i Montecchi, Adina, and the Leonoras of Il trovatore and La forza del destino.