Anja Silja Regina Langwagen, ˈanja ˈzɪlja, born April 17, 1940, in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, is a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

 who is known for her great abilities as a singing-actress and for the vastness of her repertoire.

Silja began her operatic career at a very early age, with her grandfather, Egon Friedrich Maria Anders van Rijn, as her voice teacher. She sang Rosina in Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia at Braunschweig in 1956, following this with Micaëla in Carmen and Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos.

The important part of her career began in 1959, when she sang the Queen of Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Vienna State Opera

Vienna State Opera

The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...

 (under Karl Böhm

Karl Böhm

Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...

) and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival

Aix-en-Provence Festival

The festival international d'art lyrique is an annual international music festival which takes place each summer in Aix-en-Provence, principally in the month of July. Devoted mainly to opera, it also includes concerts of orchestral, chamber, vocal and solo instrumental music.-Establishment:The...

. France-Soir dubbed her "a second Callas." Other early roles included Leonora in Il trovatore, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, the four heroines of Les contes d'Hoffmann, Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, and Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte.

After her debut in 1960 at the Bayreuth Festival

Bayreuth Festival

The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...

, as Senta in Der fliegende Holländer, she began a relationship with the stage director Wieland Wagner

Wieland Wagner

Wieland Wagner was a German opera director.- Life :Wieland was the elder of two sons of Siegfried and Winifred Wagner and grandson of composer Richard Wagner....

. At Bayreuth, she also sang Elsa in Lohengrin (opposite Astrid Varnay

Astrid Varnay

Ibolyka Astrid Maria Varnay was an American dramatic soprano of Hungarian heritage and Swedish birth, who did most of her work in the United States and Germany. She was one of the best-known Wagnerian heroic sopranos of her generation...

), Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, Eva in Die Meistersinger, Venus in Tannhäuser, Freia in Das Rheingold, the Waldvogel in Siegfried, etc. Outside Bayreuth, the soprano appeared in Wieland Wagner's productions of Salome, Tristan und Isolde, Die Walküre and Siegfried (as Brünnhilde), Elektra, Fidelio, Otello, Lulu, Wozzeck (conducted by Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez

Pierre Boulez is a French composer of contemporary classical music, a pianist, and a conductor.-Early years:Boulez was born in Montbrison, Loire, France. As a child he began piano lessons and demonstrated aptitude in both music and mathematics...

), and other operas. Of her Salome, Harold Rosenthal

Harold Rosenthal

Harold David Rosenthal OBE was an English music critic, writer, lecturer, and broadcaster about opera. Originally a schoolmaster, he became drawn to music, particularly opera, and began working on musical publications...

 wrote in Opera, in 1968:

Anja Silja's performance was a tour-de-force. Her voice is not beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, but it is clearly projected, and every phrase carries its overtones—psychological not musical—which suggest the child-like degenerate, over-sexed princess in all too clear a manner. Her nervous, almost thin body is never still; she rolls on her stomach and on her back; she crawls, she slithers, she leaps, she kneels…. There is no denying that this is one of the great performances of our time.

Following Wieland Wagner's death in 1966, Silja entered into a relationship with the conductor André Cluytens

André Cluytens

André Cluytens was a Belgian-born French conductor who was active in the concert hall, opera house and recording studio. His repertoire extended from Viennese classics through French composers to 20th century works...

. Additional new roles in the 1960s were Sieglinde (Die Walküre), Ariadne, Jenny Smith (Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny), Lady Macbeth (Macbeth), Violetta Valéry (La traviata), Turandot (first Liù, then the title role), Lucy (The Telephone), Cassandre (Les troyens, opposite Jon Vickers

Jon Vickers

Jonathan Stewart Vickers, CC , known professionally as Jon Vickers, is a retired Canadian heldentenor.Born in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, he was the sixth in a family of eight children. In 1950, he was awarded a scholarship to study opera at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto...

) and Renata in The Fiery Angel. She was seen in Frankfurt, Toulouse, Paris, Turin, Naples, Stuttgart, Zurich, Barcelona, Geneva, The Netherlands, Budapest, London (Royal Festival Hall, then Covent Garden

Covent Garden

Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

), San Francisco (her American debut, in 1968, as Salome), and Chicago. That first Lady Macbeth, in 1967, was conducted by Christoph von Dohnányi

Christoph von Dohnányi

Christoph von Dohnányi is a German conductor of Hungarian ancestry.- Youth and World War II :Dohnányi was born in Berlin, Germany to jurist Hans von Dohnányi and Christine Bonhoeffer. His uncle on his mother's side was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian/ethicist...

, with whom she had a long relationship, including a marriage that produced three children. They divorced in the 1990s, during Dohnányi's tenure with the Cleveland Orchestra

Cleveland Orchestra

The Cleveland Orchestra is an American orchestra based in Cleveland, Ohio. It is one of the five American orchestras informally referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1918, the orchestra plays most of its concerts at Severance Hall...

.

Silja continued her career with appearances at Trieste, the Edinburgh Festival

Edinburgh Festival

The Edinburgh Festival is a collective term for many arts and cultural festivals that take place in Edinburgh, Scotland each summer, mostly in August...

, the Salzburg Festival

Salzburg Festival

The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...

, Barcelona, Metropolitan Opera

Metropolitan Opera

The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 (Fidelio and Salome, 1972), Paris (Erwartung, under Sir Georg Solti

Georg Solti

Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...

), Berlin, Cologne (La fanciulla del West, directed by Hans Neugebauer), Vienna (world premiere of Einem's Kabale und Liebe) and Brussels. Other new roles in this period were Emilia Marty in The Makropoulos Case, Leonora in La forza del destino, Médée, Die lustige Witwe, Carmen (staged by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle

Jean-Pierre Ponnelle was a noted French opera director.-Biography:Ponnelle was born in Paris. He studied philosophy, art, and history there and, in 1952, began his career in Germany as a theatre designer for Hans Werner Henze's opera Boulevard Solitude...

), Princesse Eudoxie in La juive, Katya Kabanova, Tosca, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, and Die Königen von Saba (conducted by Julius Rudel

Julius Rudel

Julius Rudel is an American opera and orchestra conductor who emigrated to the United States from Austria at the age of 17 and studied conducting at the Mannes College of Music in New York City. He then forged a 35-year career with the New York City Opera, from 1944 to 1979, and was the Music...

).

In the 1980s, Silja added Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (opposite Chester Ludgin

Chester Ludgin

-Biography:Chester Ludgin was a native of Brooklyn, New York. He made his professional debut in 1956 with The Experimental Opera Theatre of America , as Baron Scarpia in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca, conducted by Renato Cellini and directed by Armando Agnini...

), La Cubana, Regan in Lear, Prinz Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus (with Karita Mattila

Karita Mattila

Karita Marjatta Mattila is a leading opera soprano. She was born in Somero, Finland.Mattila appears regularly in the major opera houses worldwide, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House in London, Théâtre du Châtelet, Opéra Bastille, the Lyric Opera of Chicago, San Francisco...

 and Judith Blegen

Judith Blegen

Judith Blegen is an American soprano, particularly associated with light lyric roles of the French, Italian and German repertories.-Life and career:Blegen was raised and attended high school in Missoula, Montana...

, staged by Maurice Béjart

Maurice Béjart

Maurice Béjart was a French born, Swiss choreographer who ran the Béjart Ballet Lausanne in Switzerland. He was the son of the French philosopher Gaston Berger.- Biography :...

), the Kostelnička in Jenůfa (at the Glyndebourne Festival), Grete in Der ferne Klang, and the Nurse in Die Frau ohne Schatten (opposite Dame Gwyneth Jones as Barak's Wife).

Silja made her debut as a stage director in 1990 at Brussels with Lohengrin. She then assumed the roles of Agave in The Bassarids (at Carnegie Hall), Ortrud in Lohengrin (in Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson (director)

Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde stage director and playwright who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video...

's production), Herodias in Salome, Anna I in Die sieben Todsünden, Klytämnestra in Elektra, Jocasta in Œdipus rex (opposite René Kollo

René Kollo

René Kollo is a German tenor.-Biography:He was born René Kollodzieyski in Berlin and grew up in Wyk auf Föhr. He attended a photography school in Hamburg, although he had always been interested in music, particularly conducting. He did not begin to perform until the mid-50s...

), Mother Marie of the Incarnation in Dialogues des Carmélites, Pierrot lunaire, Judith in Bluebeard's Castle, Countess Geschwitz in Lulu, Madame de Croissy in Dialogues des Carmélites (her Teatro alla Scala debut, under Riccardo Muti

Riccardo Muti

Riccardo Muti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor and music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.-Childhood and education:...

, 2004; three years later she sang in Jenůfa there), La voix humaine, Míla's Mother in Osud, the Comtesse in Pique-dame, and the Witch in Hänsel und Gretel. She was first heard in Cleveland, Boston, Madrid, Leipzig, Prague, and Rio de Janeiro in these recent seasons. Her 2001 recording of Jenůfa, from Covent Garden, won a Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

. She now resides in Paris, having purchased the former home of Cluytens.

Commercial Discography

• Richard Wagner
  Richard Wagner
  Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
  
  
  • Der fliegende Holländer
    The Flying Dutchman (opera)
    Der fliegende Holländer is an opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner.Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write "The Flying Dutchman" following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839, but in his 1843...
    
    (Crass; Sawallisch, 1961) [live] Philips
    Philips
    Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
    
    
  • Lohengrin
    Lohengrin (opera)
    Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
    
    (Varnay, Thomas, Vinay; Sawallisch, 1962) [live] Philips
  • Tannhäuser
    Tannhäuser (opera)
    Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
    
    (Bumbry, Windgassen; Sawallisch, 1962) [live] Philips
  • Das Rheingold
    Das Rheingold
    is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...
    
    (Windgassen, Adam; Böhm, 1966) [live] Philips
  • Götterdämmerung
    Götterdämmerung
    is the last in Richard Wagner's cycle of four operas titled Der Ring des Nibelungen...
    
    (Nilsson, Windgassen; Böhm, 1967) [live] Philips
  • Der fliegende Holländer (Adam, Talvela; Klemperer, 1968) EMI
    EMI
    The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
    
    
  • Die Walküre
    Die Walküre
    Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
    
    (Schnaut, Marc, Elming, Hale; Dohnányi, 1992) Decca Records
    Decca Records
    Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
    
    
• Ludwig van Beethoven
  Ludwig van Beethoven
  Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
  
  
  • Fidelio
    Fidelio
    Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
    
    : excerpts (Stahlman, Sergi; Matačić, 1964) Eurodisc
• Giacomo Puccini
  Giacomo Puccini
  Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
  
  
  • Tosca
    Tosca
    Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
    
    : excerpts [in German] (King, Fischer-Dieskau; Maazel, 1966) Decca Records
• Alban Berg
  Alban Berg
  Alban Maria Johannes Berg was an Austrian composer. He was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern, and produced compositions that combined Mahlerian Romanticism with a personal adaptation of Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique.-Early life:Berg was born in...
  
  
  • Lulu
    Lulu (opera)
    Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...
    
    : Lulu-Suite (Dohnányi, 1973) Decca Records
  • Lulu
    Lulu (opera)
    Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...
    
    (Faßbaender, Berry, Hotter; Dohnányi, 1976) Decca Records
  • Wozzeck
    Wozzeck
    Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...
    
    (Wächter; Dohnányi, 1979) Decca Records
• Richard Strauss
  Richard Strauss
  Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
  
  
  • Salome
    Salome (opera)
    Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....
    
    : final scene (Dohnányi, 1973) Decca Records
  • Salome (Nielsen, Hale; Schønwandt, 1997) Chandos Records
    Chandos Records
    Chandos Records is an independent classical music recording company based in Colchester, Essex, in the United Kingdom, founded in 1979 by Brian Couzens.- Background :...
    
    
• Arnold Schoenberg
  Arnold Schoenberg
  Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
  
  
  • Erwartung
    Erwartung
    Erwartung , Op.17 is a one-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg to a libretto by Marie Pappenheim. Composed in 1909, it was not premiered until June 6, 1924 in Prague conducted by Alexander Zemlinsky with Marie Gutheil-Schoder as the soprano. The work takes the unusual form of a monologue for solo...
    
    ; Sechs Lieder (Dohnányi, 1979) Decca Records
  • Pierrot Lunaire
    Pierrot Lunaire
    Dreimal sieben Gedichte aus Albert Girauds 'Pierrot lunaire' , commonly known simply as Pierrot Lunaire, Op. 21 , is a melodrama by Arnold Schoenberg...
    
    (Craft, 1999) Koch Entertainment
    Koch Entertainment
    Koch Entertainment was a music, film and television distribution company. It was purchased by E1 Entertainment in 2005 and now operates under the name E1 Entertainment.-History:The company began in 1975 as Koch International...
    
    
  • Erwartung (Craft, 2000) Koch Entertainment
• Hans Werner Henze
  Hans Werner Henze
  Hans Werner Henze is a German composer of prodigious output best known for "his consistent cultivation of music for the theatre throughout his life"...
  
  
  • La Cubana (Latham-König, 1982) WERGO
    WERGO
    WERGO is a German record label focusing on contemporary classical music. It was founded in 1962 by the art historian Werner Goldschmidt and the musicologist Helmut Kirchmayer and is currently based in Mainz, Germany....
    
    
• Kurt Weill
  Kurt Weill
  Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...
  
  
  • Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny
    Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny
    Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny is a political-satirical opera composed by Kurt Weill to a German libretto by Bertolt Brecht. It was first performed in Leipzig on 9 March 1930.-Composition history:...
    
    (Schlemm, Neumann; Latham-König, 1985) Capriccio
  • Die sieben Todsünden (Nowak, 2002) hänssler
• Leoš Janáček
  Leoš Janácek
  Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
  
  
  • Jenůfa
    Jenufa
    Jenůfa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904...
    
    (Mattila, Silvasti, Hadley; Haitink, 2001) [live] Erato Records
    Erato Records
    Erato Records is a record label founded in 1953 to promote French classical music. In 1992 it became part of Warner Bros. Records. In 1999 Erato launched a subsidiary Detour Records....
    
    
• "Russian Songs" (Hoteev, p. 2009) RCA Red Seal

Commercial Videography

• Ludwig van Beethoven
  • Fidelio (Popp, Cassilly, Adam; L.Ludwig, Hess, 1968) Arthaus
• Engelbert Humperdinck
  • Hänsel und Gretel (Damrau, Kirchschlager, Allen; C.Davis, Leiser/Caurier, 2008) [live] Opus Arte
• Leoš Janáček
  • Jenůfa (R.Alexander; A.Davis, Lehnhoff, 1989) [live] Kultur
  • The Makropulos Affair (Tear; A.Davis, Lehnhoff, 1995) [live] Kultur
• Richard Strauss
  • Salome (Malfitano, Terfel; Dohnányi, Bondy, 1997) [live] Decca
• Francis Poulenc
  • Dialogues des Carmélites (Schellenberger; Muti, Carsen, 2004) [live] TDK

External links

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRQoVnO2m8w YouTube: Anja Silja in an excerpt from Die Walküre, with Theo Adam
  Theo Adam
  Theo Adam is a distinguished German classical bass-baritone who had an active international career in operas, concerts, and recitals from the 1940s through the 1990s. He particularly excelled in portraying roles from the operas of Richard Wagner...
  
  (1967).