Bayreuth Festival, »Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg«, 25 July 2017
»Anne Schwanewilms delighted the audience as Eva with a beautiful voice and she was absolutely sure singing the high notes.«
Wolfram Goertz, Rheinische Post, 26 July 2017
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Opening of the Bayreuth Festival
On July 25 the Bayreuth Festival opens with Richard Wagner’s „Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg“. Anne Schwanewilms sings Eva in this new production directed by Barry Kosky. Philippe Jordan is musical director. The premiere will be broadcasted live at the radio and in selected cinemas.
A Guest at the NDR Kultur radio show „Klassik à la Carte“
On 21 July 2017 from 1.00 to 2.00 pm Anne Schwanewilms is a guest in the German radio show „Klassik à la Carte“ on NDR Kultur. She talks to her host Margarete Zander about her return to the Bayreuth Festival and the role of Eva in the new production of „Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg“.
„Der Rosenkavalier“, Borussen Philharmonic Orchestra Istanbul, 30 March 2017
„Six days before the premiere Anne Schwanewilms jumped in as Marschallin. The soprano delighted with a sophisticated pianissimo in her elegant and nuanced performance of the role. She focused perfectly on the important moments: ‚Die Zeit, die ist ein sonderbar Ding’ turned out as touching as her contribution to the final terzet, which has been sung in complete harmony and devoid of kitsch.“
DAS OPERNGLAS, S. Barnstorf, May 2017
Lieder by Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf, New York, Lincoln Center, 16 April 2017
„It proved among the season’s best recitals, with the German soprano in pristine voice and a charming mood plus the Scottish pianist achieving wonders of sensitivity and tonal caress throughout. Schwanewilms started very ethereally, with slow tempi and rather disengaged sound, but her soprano gained in richness and shine throughout, and its enduring purity of attack and dynamic subtlety impressed as much as the expressiveness she can bring to bear with a fairly uncomplicated tone color.“
www.gaycitynews.nyc, 26 April 2017
Lieder by Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf, Washinton DC, 22 April 2017
„In a Vocal Arts DC recital at the University of the District of Columbia on Thursday, a program of richly expressive, late-Romantic art songs by Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf suited soprano Anne Schwanewilms’s strengths uncommonly well. She’s famed for her shimmering upper voice and spun-sugar high notes, but Schwanewilms’s tangier, more forthright middle and lower registers proved just as distinctive, as did her word-specific treatment of song texts. (…) And when she bathed songs such as Wolf’s “Verborgenheit: Lass, o Welt, o lass mich sein” and Strauss’s “Die Nacht” and “Morgen” in silvery floated tone, the results were ravishing."
The Washington Post, 21 April 2017
Lieder by Richard Strauss and Hugo Wolf, New York, Lincoln Center, 16 April 2017
„Anne Schwanewilms has impeccable technique and innate musicality, knowing just how to use phrasing, word coloration, and dynamic variety to bring out the subtleties of the text and music. She achieved expressiveness with an economy of gesture (…)“
www.vocedimeche.reviews, 17 April 2017
Munich National Opera – „Der Rosenkavalier“, 5 February 2017
„It’s Anne Schwanewilms who works this magic with her outstanding incarnation. From the beginning, it’s not the German soprano we see on stage but the Marschallin herself, just as Strauss and Hoffmannsthal may have imagined her. It’s more than a performance, it’s an incarnation. It hardly possible to put into words such a strong phenomenon, every syllable seemed to be dictated by the librettist, every inflexion administrated by the composer himself. There was not one gesture, which sense did not became completely accessible, not one expression which did not unfold Bichette’s heart. Her painful insight that time is passing by so quickly, her truthful love for Oktavian and her resignition to set him free – one does not know what to remember most of this portait which is very close to perfection.
If we add her queenlike posture, crowned with flaming red hair, we have tears in our eyes when Anne Schwanewilms enters the stage in the last act, more Marschallin than ever. In the midst of all vocal perfection two moments stand out: At the end of act one, the almost surreal pianissimo on the word „Ros’n“, when her timbre, clear as spring water, seems to float over the orchestra; and in the third act, when her last phrase „Hab mir’s gelobt“ raises with poignant Portamenti melting my heart.“
Nicolas Grienenberger, www.classiquenews.com, 7 February 2017
Munich National Opera – „Der Rosenkavalier“, 5 February 2017
„Anne Schwanewilms is a safe bet and she did not disappoint. She completely controls her subtle voice which is more than appropriate to mirror the qualities of the Marschallin, from elegance to resignation.“
Esteban Hernández, Platea Magazine, 6 February 2017
New CD „Wozzeck“
The Houston Symphony Orchestra just released a recording of Alban Berg’s „Wozzeck“ with Roman Trekel and Anne Schwanewilms. The conductor is Hans Graf. „The singing is gripping: baritone Roman Trekel is one of today’s top Wozzecks, full-on and volatile, his violence cracked with frailty, and Anne Schwanewilms plays Marie with devastating dignity“, says music critic Kate Molleson from „The Guardian“ in her review. The CD has been released by Naxos on 13 January 2017.
Listen now