Annie Rosen
About
Mezzo-soprano Annie Rosen's performances have been acclaimed as “fearless,” “intensely present,” and “soul-crushingly vulnerable.” Recent seasons included performances as Wellgunde in Der Ring des Nibelungen with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra at Tanglewood, and Lyric Opera of Chicago; Ankhesenpaaten in Akhnaten and Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera; and solo recitals of 21st-century Yiddish and Japanese music in New York and Minneapolis.
Post-2020, Rosen made her debut in the title roles of The Maid of Orleans with Opera Company of Middlebury and L’enfant et les sortilèges with Florentine Opera; covered Guinevere in Le roi Arthus at Bard Summerscape; and returned to the Metropolitan Opera for Akhnaten and Medea. Her pre-pandemic roles included Adalgisa in Norma with Opera Calgary; Suzuki in Madama Butterfly with Central City Opera; and Siebel in Faust with 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 opera based on the poetry of Anne Sexton and the compositions of Mariana Sadovska; a fully staged interpretation of György Kurtág's Kafka Fragments for solo voice and solo violin in New York City; and a collaboration with the Hong Kong Ballet in Kurt Weill's Die Sieben Todsünden.
On the concert stage, Rosen’s repertoire spans from the medieval to the contemporary. 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, Santa Fe Opera, Central City Opera, and 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 native, Rosen earned degrees in musicology and performance from Yale University and Mannes College.