©Photo: Tuomas Tenkanen

©Photo: Ville Paasimaa

©Photo: Tuomas Tenkanen

©Photo: Päivi Karjalainen

©Photo: Dvořákova Praha

©Photo: Ville Paasimaa

©Photo: Maarit Kytoharju

Anu Komsi

Soprano

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“The gleaming steel of Anu Komsi´s soprano cut through all of it, fearlessly communicative and utterly compelling, from whispered bottom of her voice to its stratospheric top.”
(BBCSO / Lindberg Accused, The Guardian, November 2020)

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Known for her “technical daring” (The Times) and “pyrotechnic grace” (New Yorker), Anu Komsi is one of the world’s foremost singers. A regular and iconic collaborator with myriad contemporary composers, Komsi’s performances often serve as the blueprint for future productions, and she continues to bring fresh and affecting interpretations to traditional roles and concert repertoire. Throughout her eminent career, she has worked with leading conductors including Sir Roger Norrington, Sakari Oramo, Andris Nelsons, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Alan Gilbert, Franz Welser-Möst, Peter Eötvös, George Benjamin, Martyn Brabbins, Dalia Stasevska, Hannu Lintu, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Anna-Maria Helsing, Tarmo Peltokoski, and distinguished directors such as Pierre Audi, Barrie Kosky, Lydia Steier, Simon Stone, Achim Freyer, Karin Beier, Christoph Loy, Juho Kuosmanen and Leea Klemola.

Komsi opens the 2024/25 season at BBC Proms, collaborating with the Sibelius Academy and Royal College of Music Symphony Orchestra to give the world premiere Lara Poe’s Laulut maaseudulta (‘Songs from the Countryside’). Following the Proms, Komsi performs with Gewandhauseorchester Leipzig, Helsinki Philharmonic, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, and BBC Symphony Orchestra. A dedicated advocate of contemporary music, she sings works by Kaija Saariaho, Jukka Tiensuu, Aarre Merikanto, and Heidi Sundblad-Halme, as well as performing core repertoire such as Berlioz’s Nuits D´éte, Mahler’s Symphonies, Sibelius’ Luonnotar, and Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder amongst others.

Operatic highlights this season include Semperoper Dresden — reprising her role as the Mother-in-law in Saariaho’s Innocence — and previous seasons highlights include playing Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, titular roles in Strauss’ Salome, Berg’s Lulu, Holliger’s Schneewittchen, Eötvös’ Lady Sarashina and Poulenc’s Tiresias, Catherine in Meyerbeer’s L’étoile du nord, Eva in Stockhausen’s Donnerstag aus Licht, and the sole role in Feldman’s Neither, appearing at prestigious opera companies and festivals such as Opéra national de Paris, Teatro alla Scala Milan, Lucerne Festival, Salzburg Festival and Savonlinna Opera Festival and Helsinki Festival.

Amongst the many pieces specially written for Komsi, repertoire highlights include Saariaho’s Leino Songs and Saarikoski Songs, Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill, Chin’s Cantatrix Sopranica, the role of ‘President Kekkonen’ in H‑J Hofmann’s Ahti Karjalainen – Life, Kekkonen and Works, Christian Mason’s Man Made, Salonen’s Floof and Wing on Wing, Jukka Tiensuu’s Voice Verser and Double Concerto, ‘Ihmepari’, and the 2020 revision of Magnus Lindberg’s Accused.

Komsi boasts an extensive discography, including her internationally lauded rendition of Sibelius’ Luonnotar, Kurtág’s Kafka Fragments, Zimmermann’s Soldaten Symphony and Fagerlund’s Döbeln, and J. Zorn, Machine de L´être. She has featured on three Gramophone Award-winning recordings: Rued Langgaard’s Symphony No.2 with Wiener Philharmoniker under Sakari Oramo, Saariaho’s Leino Songs with Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Jonathan Harvey´s White as Jasmine with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Her latest album Sumun Läpi (Through the Mist) features songs with piano by Saariaho.

As Founder, Artistic Director and Managing Director of West Coast Kokkola Opera for 14 seasons, Komsi oversaw Kokkola Opera Summer Festival which produced 25 full-scale opera productions, as well as over 100 concerts and events. Critically acclaimed as stage director in Puccini´s Suor Angelica, Weill´s Der Silbersee and operas by Vivaldi and Detlev Glanert. A champion of new music, Komsi was awarded the Madetoja Prize by The Finnish Composers’ Society in 2020 and received the prestigious Erik Bergman Prize in 2021 for special achievements in performing and commissioning new vocal repertoire internationally.

HarrisonParrott represents Anu Komsi for worldwide general management.

Poulenc Gloria no. 6 / Collon © Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, 2022

Zimmermann Die Soldaten Vocalsymphonie Marie’s Aria / Lintu © Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, 2018

Merikanto Ekho / Oramo © Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, 2020

Strauss, Four Last Songs No.2 September / Oramo © Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, 2020

Saariaho Luonnon Kasvot from Saarikoski Songs / Pia Värri / 2021

Lindberg Accused Part 1 / Lintu / Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra / 2020

Mahler Symphony No 4 in G Major, Part IV / Sir Roger Norrington / Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, 2019

Zorn Machine de l’etre III entremeles/ Oramo / Lahti Symphony Orchestra, 2013

Glière Coloratura Soprano Concerto I. Andante / Oramo / Lahti Symphony Orchestra, 2013

“Her extraordinary soprano voice seemed to float down from an angelic realm, but as it descended it became human and consoling. It was truly the heart of this wonderful performance.”

The Telegraph, March 2024

“Anu Komsi delivers an interpretation that is both modest and sensitive, leaving the listener in the highest spheres and on a cloud of emotion.”

Bachtrack, November 2023

“Komsi has a high, pure soprano with a captivating crystalline quality…”

– Frank Kuznik for Bachtrack, September 2023

“Her strength of tone is striking, the way she leans into the moaning glissandos, ploughs through the lyricism and dispatches a tight, almost avian vibrato effect. She is in total control despite the dramatic fear in her eyes.”

GRAMOPHONE, June 2023 (SAARIAHO: SAARIKOSKI SONGS)

“No instrument… blotted out the technical daring and tonal beauties of the soprano Anu Komsi, resplendent in a tulip-splattered dress, and consistently gripping…”

THE TIMES, MAY 2023

“Anu Komsi presents [Mother-in-Law] in a genuinely moving way and delivers such thunderously clean tones and pianissimos that I am left gasping in my seat… Naturally, she negotiates her throat-breaking coloraturas with flying colours, but her role conveys depths far deeper than virtuosity.”

Hufvudstadsbladet, October 2022 (SAARIAHO: INNOCENCE)

“But it was Komsi’s performance of Luonnotar… that was on another level altogether. It became an experience of soaring operatic intensity…”

The Guardian, October 2022

“Soprano Anu Komsi provided… a transcendental element. It is always a great privilege to hear her interpretation, totally dedicated and still immersed in the music.”

(Helsingin Sanomat, April 2022, Poulenc: Gloria)

“The vocal and expressive range is astonishing, delivered with a poise and precision that goes to the core of Saariaho’s uniquely intense yet ethereal soundworld.”

(BBC Music Magazine, March 2022, Saariaho: Sumun Lappi Album)

“As rendered with Saariaho’s distinctive sonic palette (…) this song cycle — written bespoke for Komsi’s stratospheric range — truly shines with the full heft of an orchestra behind the soprano. How many other singers will actually be able to pull it off is anyone’s guess.”

(Boston Globe, February 2022, Saariaho: Saarikoski Songs)

“Anu Komsi’s coloratura soprano soared like a bird over the peculiar shimmering tonal landscapes of Hans Werner Henze’s Being Beauteous.”

(Hufvudstadsbladet, April 2021, Hans Werner Henze: Being Beauteous)

“The gleaming steel of Anu Komsi’s soprano cut through all of it, fearlessly communicative and utterly compelling, from whispered bottom of her voice to its stratospheric top.”

(The Guardian, November 2020, Flora Willson, Magnus Lindberg: Accused)

“Anu Komsi renders the vocal line like a cool ribbon of mist that lets through varying degrees of light.”

(New York Times, November 2020, Saariaho: Sua katselen from ‘Leino Songs’)

“Anu Komsi glimmered in the joyful opera.”

(Helsingin Sanomat/HS Kulttuuri, November 2017, Meyerbeer: L’etoile du Nord)