News + Reviews

Anna's recent performance of the Bach Christmas Oratorio with the Tudor Consort, will be replayed online on Christmas Day via this link: http://www.radionz.co.nz/concert/highlights/none/20111225

This year Anna was a finalist in the prestigious BBC Cardiff World Singer of the Year competition. This is the premier showcase for opera and concert singers at the start of their careers. Anna is one of 20 finalists out of 600 singers from 36 countries who auditioned.

Anna is well-loved by the audiences at Opera Holland Park, where she sings regularly. In 2010 Anna was presented with the award for 'Best Female in a Supporting role', for her role in 'Francesca di Rimini' in the 2010 Opera Holland Park Season. Opera Holland Park was then announced best opera company in the UK by the Sunday Star Times. In 2011 Anna sang the female lead role of Suzel in Mascagni's 'L'amico Fritz' for Opera Holland Park, and was awarded joint 'Best Female Lead'. She returns to perform the lead role of Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin for OHP in July 2012.

Also in 2012 Anna will return to NZ Opera to perform the lead role of Majenka in The Bartered Bride, and following her success as Freia in the Auckland Philharmonia's 'Das Rheingold' opera in concert series this year, she will sing the role of Anna in 'Nabucco' for the APO again.

Anna has recently been named as an Arts Foundation New Generation Artist in New Zealand. The award, presented by Freemasons New Zealand, celebrates five artists early on in their career and is presented every two years. Anna has just returned from a successful tour of China with Jose Carreras, and a spell in Hawkes Bay, New Zealand, as Black Barn artist in residence at the New Zealand Singing School. She is honoured to announce continued support from Lexus New Zealand.

And in October, the annual Gramophone Awards - Linn Records, label to The Prince Consort ensemble, was named Label of the Year, the culmination of nearly three decades of work.
The Prince Consort performed world premiere performances of two songs composed by pianist Stephen Hough at the ceremony.



In March last year Anna performed with the Prince Consort at the Wigmore Hall. The recital received rave 5 star reviews. The Prince Consort have recently released an entire disk of Rorem repertoire, titled "On an Echoing Road". Available here.
Anna spent November in Cologne, performing the role of Antonia in "The Tales of Hofmann", a role debut and her first performance with Opera Koln.

Anna's latest solo CD, recorded for Michael Storrs Music, was released in May on iTunes- "Life is a Dream" CD of Haydn's songs.
The disk was given a five star review in the UK's Classical Music Magazine. (June issue) "Anna Leese's performances of a splendid selection of Haydn's song repertoire are outstanding. In "The Wanderer", "Der Gleichsinn" and "Fidelity", she sings with a flair and brilliance that matches the great interpreters of the past."
- Dominic McHugh, MusicalCriticism.com, April 2009

You can purchase the CD at iTunes.com or msm-cd.com

"Life is a Dream" is Anna's first CD with MSM and she just recorded a second disk which is currently being edited. On this disk disk Anna and New Zealand pianist Stephen de Pledge perform a mixture of rare and well-known Italian love songs, composed by Bellini, Puccini, Verdi, Leoncavallo, Arditi and Tosti

THE ANNA LEESE ROSE

is now available in selected nurseries throughout New Zealand.
Anna Leese (WEKscemala), bred by Tom Carruth of Weeks Roses, California, USA.
Blooms of an eye-catching combination of orange red suffused with apricot yellow are a feature of this rose, set off against mahogany red new growth.
A bushy grower to one metre high. Bred from Scentimental x Amalia.

What Anna Leese is doing now, find out via:

REVIEWS

• On performing in La Boheme with the Canadian Opera Company -
  "Vocally vivid, [Anna Leese as Musetta]... turned Act II into a mad scene, and stopped the show with her famous aria Quando m'en vo. I found myself wishing Puccini had given her more to do."
  - The Globe and Mail; 20^th of April, 2009
  
  
• Elijah/ Cardiff 1^st of March, 2009
  "...the sheer vocal presence of Anna Leese's fine soprano provided an element of theatricality that might have surprised even Mendelssohn."
  - The Guardian; 5^th of March, 2009
  
  
• "...in particular, demonstrated a regal command of character and idiom in a voice bursting with dramatic potential. The big operatic roles can only be just around the corner."
  - Nigel Jarrett, South Wales Argus; 2^nd of March, 2009
  
  
• "The loveliness of her presence and of her art is indeed beyond compare. She shines like a flawless jewel, polished and ready to be placed in whatever crown the fates have prepared for her"
  - The Tribune; 11^th of March, 2007
  
  
• "I have rarely seen a substitute seize her chance more exuberantly. With her diamond-clear voice and natural comic timing she seemed born to play this part. Leese is one potential star in the making."
  - The Times; 25^th of October, 2006
  
  
• "Hers is a big, bright, gleaming soprano with richly coloured lower notes, and she uses it with taste and confidence beyond her years: one might think it rather cruel of a director to place a student singer atop a grand piano for the Czardas, but she carried it off with aplomb."
  - Seen and Heard; November, 2005
  
  

LEXUS SPONSORSHIP

Anna is proud to annouce her continued sponsorship from Lexus New Zealand, who provide her with a vehicle when she is home in New Zealand. Lexus have generously supported Anna since 2003, when she won the Mobil Song Quest- now the Lexus Song Quest.

BIOGRAPHY

Soprano Anna Leese graduated from the RCM Benjamin Britten Opera course in London, 2007, under tenor Ryland Davies. Upon graduating she won a major award from the RCM, the coveted Queen Elizabeth Rose Bowl, for representing the College in the community. Anna has previously completed a MusB degree with First Class Honours at the University of Otago in her native New Zealand, in 2002, under Isabel Cunningham. Anna is currently studying privately with Lillian Watson in London.

Anna had a predominantly choral introduction to music through singing in church choirs, and was a member of the New Zealand Secondary Students choir, and the Tower New Zealand Youth Choir before she decided to concentrate on solo voice.

Anna has won an impressive list of awards and aria prizes, including the 2001 Dame Sister Mary Leo Scholarship, the 2002 Mobil Song Quest, the 2002 Lockwood Aria scholarship and the 2003 McDonalds Aria
Scholarship in Sydney, held in the Sydney Opera House.

Anna's solo performances include the Strauss' Vier Letzte Lieder, Brahms Requiem, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, Mendlessohn's Elijah, Bach's St John Passion, Handel's Messiah, and Faure's Requiem. Anna won the 2004 Royal Overseas League Vocal competition, was named best overseas competitor in the same competition, has performed, Mahler's second symphony with Bernard Haitink, and Donna Anna in excerpts from Mozart's Don Giovanni with the London Mozart Players under Andrew Parrot.

Anna has sung a fair amount under the baton of Canterbury-based Richard Cooke, who conducted her first performance of Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs in Canterbury Cathedral in 2007.

Operatic roles include Ilia in Mozart's Idomeneo with the Auckland Opera Studio, Female Chorus in Britten's The Rape of Lucretia, Fiordiligi in Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte and Rosalinde in Strauss's Die Fledermaus, all for the Benjamin Britten Opera School and Juliette in Gounod's Romeo et Juliette with the British Youth Opera. She has performed the role of Tamiri in Mozart's Il re Pastore at the Linbury theatre, Royal Opera House (where she made her debut at age 24) and three Mozart heroines Fiordiligi, Countess Almaviva and Tamiri with the Classical Opera Company.

In 2006 Anna performed in her first Prom concert with SCO and Norrington. With the Royal Opera House, understudied Arminda in Finta Giardiniera, Musetta in La Boheme and in January 2007 she sang the role of Michaela in Bizet's Carmen with ROH. Since then, at the Royal Opera House, Covent garden, she has performed Musetta in La Boheme, Erste Dame in Die Zauberflote and Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos. In 2009 she sang the role of 'Antonia' in The Tales of Hoffmann for Opera Koln, Musetta in Boheme for Canadian Opera and Tatyana in Eugene Onegin for Opera New Zealand. 2010 saw her debut the role of Tatyana for Vlaamse Opera in Belgium and Anna sang her first role for Opera Holland Park in 2010, Biancofiore in Zandonai's Francesca di Rimini.

On the concert stage Anna has sung with several of the World's most-loved singers. She peformed with Andrea Bocelli in Auckland -August 2008, and with Jose Carreras in Newcastle, Seoul and Taipei. Another highlight (Anna is an avid All Blacks fan) was performing with Dame Kiri te Kanawa in Twickenham Stadium in 2005 for Jonah Lomu's return to rugby sevens.

Anna toured NZ with pianist Terence Dennis, for NZ Chamber Music