Anne-Lise Berntsen

At the age of 19 the Norwegian soprano Anne-Lise Berntsen went to the Mozarteum in Salzburg. After four years she broke off her studies there to start a family. Following a break of several years she resumed her studies in 1978, and among other things studied Baroque music at the Conservatoire in The Hague and the Opera Academy in Stockholm. In 1988 she had a major breakthrough in Sweden in the title role of Turandot at the National Opera. The next year she was awarded the biggest prize the Norwegian Cassette Tape Duty Fund has ever given a Norwegian artist. She has sung many major opera roles in and outside Scandinavia, including Rose in Taverner at the Royal Opera in Stockholm, the title role in Ariane auf Naxos at the Gothenburg Opera, and Carmen at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen. For the past year she has been working in the USA and Mexico. She has recorded several CDs of works by Wagner, Shostakovich, Sibelius and others. In January 1997, in the world premiere at Malmö Musikteater, she sang the female lead in Hans Gefors' opera Vargen kommer (The Wolf is Coming).