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Sylvia Anderson, soprano/mezzo-soprano
Sylvia Anderson was born in Denver, Colorado, where her father was a prominent lawyer and her mother a music and art educator.She earned her M.M. at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, with a Performers Certificate in Voice and Opera. In these years she was a Young Artist at the Central City Festival and the Santa Fe Opera Festival and received DMA degree in Opera from the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, Germany. Miss Anderson spent nearly 30 years abroad singing in major houses in Europe, South America and the U.S. She sang 17 roles at the San Francisco Opera as well, and two seasons with the New York City Opera, San Diego Opera, Portland Opera and Philadelphia Opera, as well as in Europe and South America in major houses as Teatro Colón, Buenos Aires, Teatro Liceo, Barcelona, Rome, Trieste, Amsterdam Operas, Theatre Royale de la monnaie, Bruxelles, Berlin, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Cologne, Hamburg, Duesseldorf and Vienna Operas.
She was one of very few Americans invited to sing behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War. She sang Elizabeth in "Tannhaeuser" in Moscow and Kasakstan, Salome in Warsaw and Brangaene in ‘Tristan” in Teheran just before the Iranian uprising.
Miss Anderson sang Carl Orff's “Antigone” at the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, during the Festival of Greek Tragedy. She has sung 20 Wagnerian roles at the Bayreuth Festival under Wolfgang Wagner and at the San Francisco Opera, Frankfurt, Berlin, Barcelona and Lisbon Operas.
Salome, Octavian, the Marschallin, Tosca and Carmen are her most famous roles, each sung over 100 times. Her 100th performance of Octavian occurred at the opening of the new Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
Her love of concerts brought Sylvia Anderson together with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Wiener Philharmonic, the Brücknerhalle Orchestra in Linz, the RAI Rome Orchestra, the Orchester of the Suisse Romande, the Stuttgart and Frankfurt Philharmonic among others. Favorite concert repertoire includes Strauss's Four Last Songs, Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder, Beethoven's 9th Symphony, The Missa Solemnis, Handel's Messiah, The Verdi Requiem, Bach's B minor mass, St. Matthew and St. John Passions.and numerous contemporary works.
Miss Anderson joined the voice faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music in 1990. Her many students can be heard singing in major opera houses in the U.S. and abroad.
In 1992 she founded the Bay Area Summer Opera Theater Institute (BASOTI), creating performance opportunities for conservatory and university vocal students and helping them prepare for auditions and the professional world of singing.