Larson, Sophia
Larson, Sophia
Larson, Sophia, Austrian soprano; b. Linz, 1954. She studied at the Salzburg Mozarteum and with Ettore Campogalliani. In 1976 she made her operatic debut as Amelia Boccanegra in St. Gallen, and then sang in Ulm (1979–80) and Bremen (1980–83). She also appeared as a guest artist in Hamburg, Stuttgart, and Rome. In 1984 she made her first appearance at the Bayreuth Festival as Gutrune, and returned there to sing Venus in 1987 and Sieglinde in 1989. In 1985 she sang the Duchess of Parma in Busoni’s Doktor Faust in Bologna. After appearing as Gutrune in Munich, Tosca in Turin, and Isolde in Toronto in 1987, she was a soloist in Britten’s War Requiem at N.Y.’s Carnegie Hall in 1988. In the latter year, she also appeared as Senta in San Francisco. She sang Els in Schreker’s Der Schatzgräber at the Holland Festival in 1992. In 1995 she made her British debut as Turandot in London.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire