In the 2024-25 season, mezzo-soprano Annika Schlicht will make her US debut, first with Mahler's "Lied von der Erde" and a recital at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. This will be followed by a performance of Mahler's "Des Knaben Wunderhorn" with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra at the Edinburgh Festival. She will then make her debut at San Francisco Opera as Brangäne in a new production of "Tristan und Isolde".
In the concert hall, she will perform Szymanowski's Stabat Mater and Franco Parac's "Judita" with the Munich Radio Orchestra, as well as Mahler's 2nd Symphony with the Staatskapelle Weimar. In addition, she will embody Waltraute in a new production of "Götterdämmerung" at the Theater Dortmund.
At the Deutsche Oper Berlin, she will be heard in roles including Brangäne ("Tristan und Isolde") and Magdalene ("Die Meistersänger von Nürnberg"), and will make her debut as Carmen.
In the summer of 2023, Annika Schlicht returned to the Salzburg Festival for two concerts with Klangforum Wien. The mezzo-soprano was then invited by Kent Nagano to take on the role of Fricka in Richard Wagner's "Das Rheingold" with Concerto Köln in historically informed performance practice. This was followed in August 2023 by a tour with concerts in Cologne, Lucerne and Ravello.
In the 2023/24 season, she made her successful debut as Brangäne in a new production of "Tristan und Isolde" at the Staatstheater Cottbus and debuted as Frugola, Zita and Principessa in a new production of "Il Trittico" at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Other roles at her home theater included, among others, Fricka in "Das Rheingold" and "Die Walküre," Waltraute in "Götterdämmerung," and the alto and mezzo-soprano solos in a staged production of "St. Matthew Passion" and Verdi's Messa da Requiem, the latter in cooperation with the Berlin State Ballet.
The German mezzo-soprano was born in Stuttgart and studied at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin with Prof. Renate Faltin.
Since the 2015/16 season, she has been an ensemble member at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, where she sang Fricka in "Das Rheingold" and "Die Walküre" as well as Waltraute in "Götterdämmerung" in the new "Ring des Nibelungen" during the past seasons. She also returned to the Bregenz Festival to sing Fricka in "Das Rheingold" and made her house debut in "Die Walküre" at the Stuttgart State Opera.
The singer's wide-ranging repertoire includes, among others, Fenena in "Nabucco", Adriano in "Rienzi", Mrs Quickly in "Falstaff", Prince Orlovsky in "Die Fledermaus", Magdalene in "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg", Hänsel in "Hänsel und Gretel", Olga in "Eugene Onegin", Dorabella in "Così fan tutte", Marchesa Melibea in "Viaggio a Reims", Maddalena/"Rigoletto", Auntie/"Peter Grimes", Page/"Salome", Flosshilde/"Das Rheingold" and "Götterdämmerung", Siegrune/"Die Walküre", Contessa di Coigny/"Andrea Chenier" and Princesse Clarisse/"Die Liebe zu den drei Orangen".
Her Auntie in "Peter Grimes" at the Bergen International Festival was also very well received, and she was subsequently engaged by the Bergen National Opera as Sesto in "La Clemenza di Tito" in 2020.
Recent guest engagements have taken her to the Royal Opera Houses in London and Muscat, as well as to Frankfurt, Hamburg (Elbphilharmonie and State Opera), Munich (Bavarian State Opera), Paris (Opera Bastille), Dresden (Semperoper) and Berlin (Staatsoper) and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein.
While still a student, Annika Schlicht was accepted into the International Opera Studio at the Berlin State Opera, where she debuted in the 2013/14 and 2014/15 seasons in various small and medium-sized roles.
Masterclasses with Julia Varady and Kammersänger Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Kammersängerin Deborah Polaski, Patricia McCaffrey and Kammersängerin Brigitte Fassbaender, who continues to mentor Annika Schlicht to this day, also had a significant influence on the singer. She is a scholarship holder of the Richard Wagner Association and has won several prestigious competitions.
In 2014, Annika Schlicht made her debut at the Salzburg Festival as part of the Young Singers Project in the title role of the children's opera "Cenerentola" by Rossini and in the world premiere of Marc-André Dalbavie's "Charlotte Salomon".
In the same summer, she was invited by KS Brigitte Fassbaender to perform a song matinee at the Eppaner Liedsommer with works by Richard Strauss.
Annika Schlicht's extensive opera career is complemented by her work as a concert and song singer. Gustav Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde" in Klagenfurt and Pordenone and his 3rd Symphony in Dresden, Antonín Dvořák's Stabat Mater in Poland, Giuseppe Verdi's Messa da Requiem in Essen, Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony in Brussels, Berlin and Antwerp, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Johannes Brahms' "Alt-Rhapsodie", Johann Sebastian Bach's "Christmas Oratorio", Richard Wagner's "Wesendonck Lieder", Antonio Vivaldi's Gloria, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem in Riga, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's "Paulus" and "Elijah", Lili Boulanger's "Au fond de l'abîme" in Munich and Igor Kuljerić's "Glagolitic Requiem" in Zagreb are just a few examples of the repertoire she has already performed.
She has worked with renowned conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Zubin Metha, Sir Donald Runnicles, Ivan Repušic, John Fiore, Alondra de la Parra, Enrique Mazzola, Asher Fisch, Edward Gardner, Stéphane Denève, Sebastian Weigle, Kent Nagano, Ingo Metzmacher, Christopher Moulds, Alexander Soddy, Ulf Schirmer, Axel Kober, Stefan Soltesz and renowned directors such as Harry Kupfer, Hans Neuenfels, Stefan Herheim, Luc Bondy, Claus Guth, Jossi Wieler, Dmitri Tschernjakow and Johannes Erath, as well as orchestras such as the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Deutsches-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg, the Brussels Philharmonic, the Bremen Philharmonic and the Ensemble Modern.
In summer 2018 she performed at the Ravello Festival with the orchestra of the Deutsche Oper Berlin under Sir Donald Runnicles. The program included Wagner's "Wesendonck Lieder".
On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War, Annika Schlicht was engaged as a soloist for Beethoven's 9th Symphony by the UNESCO World Orchestra for Peace.