Annie Rosen
About
Mezzo-soprano Annie Rosen's performances have been acclaimed as “fearless,” “intensely present,” and “soul-crushingly vulnerable.” Recent seasons: Wellgunde/Der Ring des Nibelungen (Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra/Tanglewood, Lyric Opera of Chicago), Ankhesenpaaten/Akhnaten and Kate Pinkerton/Madama Butterfly (The Metropolitan Opera), and solo recitals of 21st century Yiddish and Japanese music in NYC and Minneapolis.
Post-2020, Rosen debuted as the title role of The Maid of Orleans (Opera Company of Middlebury) and of L’enfant et les sortilèges (Florentine Opera), covered Guinevere/Le roi Arthus at Bard Summerscape, and returned to The Metropolitan Opera for Akhnaten and Medea. Her most recent pre-pandemic roles included Adalgisa/Norma (Opera Calgary), Suzuki/Madama Butterfly (Central City Opera), and Siebel/Faust (Lyric Opera of Chicago).
An aficionado of new and experimental work, Rosen joined the Lyric Opera of Kansas City's Explorations series in 2019 to present a fully staged version of Sarah Kirkland Snider's one-woman song cycle Penelope. Other fringe work has included a collaboration with L.A.-based director Annie Saunders and the International Contemporary Ensemble to help create The Wreck, a site-specific devised opera based on the poetry of Anne Sexton and the compositions of Mariana Sadovska; a fully staged interpretation of Gyorgy Kurtag's Kafka Fragments for solo voice and solo violin in New York City, which OperaNews hailed as “a flat-out triumph for its two fearless performers"; and a collaboration with the Hong Kong Ballet in Kurt Weill's Die Sieben Todsünden.
On the concert stage, Rosen’s repertoire spans medieval to contemporary and everything in between. Her recital repertoire, often staged, has included chants of Hildegard von Bingen; Handel solo cantatas; song cycles by Berlioz, Berio, and Shostakovich; and world premieres of Hindi and Farsi songs by Indian-American composer Reena Esmail. She was a 2021 semifinalist in the postponed Naumburg Vocal Competition for recitalists.
Rosen is also an eager participant in the wide world of video game music. Her voice has appeared on numerous arrangements of game soundtracks across platforms and as a featured soloist on the indie games Ambition: A Minuet In Power, 12 Labors, and Plateau Melody. She has programmed and performed live solo recitals exploring the role of opera and classical voice throughout video game history with Bonus Stage Vancouver, vgmtogether, and VGMCon, featuring composers Nobuo Uematsu, Masayoshi Soken, and Jessica Curry, among many others.
Rosen is a 2022 Grammy award winner for Akhnaten. She holds additional awards from the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, Gerda Lissner Foundation, the Santa Fe Opera and Central City Opera, and the Connecticut Opera Guild. She is a recipient of the Shoshana Foundation's Richard F. Gold Career Grant and the Louis Sudler Prize in the Performing and Creative Arts from Yale College. Her apprenticeships included the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Lyric Opera of Chicago. A New Haven, CT native, Rosen earned degrees in musicology and performance from Yale University and Mannes College.
