Best known for her roles in
Wagner's music dramas and concert performances of
Mahler, Swedish mezzo-soprano
Anna Larsson rose to prominence in the 1990s. She studied at the Adolf Fredrik's Music School and the University College of Opera in Stockholm. On-stage, she made her operatic debut in 1997, singing the role of Erda in Das Rheingold, with
Daniel Barenboim conducting at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin. Subsequently, she added the parts of Waltraute, Kundry, and Brangäne to her list of Wagnerian heroines. As an interpreter of
Mahler, she made her concert debut in the Symphony No. 2 in C minor, "Resurrection," with the
Berlin Philharmonic under
Claudio Abbado, and in the Symphony No. 3 in D minor with the
Dusseldorf Symphony conducted by
Adam Fischer. She has also sung
Brahms' Alto Rhapsody with the
Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by
Paavo Berglund, and recorded it with
Thomas Dausgaard and the
Swedish Chamber Orchestra. Her recording of
Richard Strauss' Daphne with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne led by
Semyon Bychkov, brought her a Grammy nomination in 2005. In 2014, the King of Sweden awarded her the Royal Medal "Litteris et Artibus."
Larsson and her husband Göran Eliasson are major promoters of the Dalhalla opera, and they built and inaugurated the Vattnäs Concert Barn near Orsa Lake in the Swedish province of Dalarna, and became involved with the summer opera festival held in a limestone quarry (Dalhalla Open Air Theater) in Darlecarlia.
Larsson produced
Wagner's Das Rheingold in 2013 and
Puccini's Turandot in 2015, casting
Nina Stemme as Turandot, and appeared in her own right as Carmen in 2016.