Anja Silja

Anja Silja, German soprano, born April 17, 1940 in Berlin.

Related Topics:
German - Soprano - April 17 - 1940 - Berlin

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Anja Silja began her operatic career at a very early age. She sang Rosina in Rossini's Barbiere di Siviglia at the Berlin Städtische Oper in 1956. Her worlwide career took up when she sang the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Magic Flute at the 1959 Aix-en-Provence Festival. She had an affair with Wieland Wagner, who left his family for her and made her one of his New Bayreuth stalwarts from 1960 to Wieland's death in 1966. By then, she was already romantically involved with French conductor André Cluytens, himself a married man to whom she had been introduced by Wieland. Cluytens died in 1967 and Silja vowed never to sing the music of Richard Wagner again as she felt it impossible with any other conductor. She subsequently married Austrian conductor Christoph von Dohnányi.

Related Topics:
Rossini - 1956 - Mozart - 1959 - Aix-en-Provence - Wieland Wagner - Bayreuth - 1960 - 1966 - André Cluytens - 1967 - Richard Wagner - Christoph von Dohnányi

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Among her many roles are Salome and Herodias in Strauss's Salome, Elektra in his Elektra, Isolde in Richard Wagner's Tristan and Isolde, Senta in his Flying Dutchman, Elisabeth and Venus in his Tannhäuser, Elsa and Ortrud in his Lohengrin, Freia and Brünnhilde in his Nibelung's Ring, Mère Marie in Francis Poulenc's Dialogues des carmélites, Marie in Alban Berg's Wozzeck, Lulu and Gräfin Geschwitz in his Lulu, Kostelni?ka in Leo? Janá?ek's Jen?fa, Emilia Marty in his V?c Makropulos, Fiordiligi in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, Desdemona in Verdi's Otello, Prince Orlovsky in Johann Strauss II's Die Fledermaus, Anna Glawari in Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow, etc.

Related Topics:
Strauss - Richard Wagner - Tristan and Isolde - Flying Dutchman - Tannhäuser - Ortrud - Lohengrin - Nibelung's Ring - Francis Poulenc - Alban Berg - Leo? Janá?ek - Mozart - Verdi - Johann Strauss II - Die Fledermaus - Franz Lehár - The Merry Widow

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