Anita Watson
Artist Reviews
“Capturing the audience with her clear and pure tone, Anita Watson plays the role of Donna Anna...Watson gave a most moving performance of her anguished character.”
Anita Watson's clarion soprano was exquisitely contoured to express Donna Anna's grief-tinged vengefulness.”
“The central figure, the Governess, is sung here by Anita Watson. The gentle radiance of her soprano and the unforced clarity of her diction (there are no surtitles) are matched by an economical, but always eloquent physical performance. Her smile speaks volumes."
“Hers is a gorgeous, liquid lyric soprano...”
“As the Governess, Anita Watson sang with a beautifully sweet tone and finely, entrancingly nuanced phrasing; her words - there were no surtitles though copies of the libretto were supplied - were as crystalline as her conception of her own ‘mission’.”
“Anita Watson was Anne Trulove, showing not only beautiful voice, since her dynamic handling is excellent, her pianissimi are marvellous and her forte are solid; her performance is convincing in the pursuit of the libertine in which Tom has become”.
"Of the principals, Anita Watson's radiant Michaela, a homely foil for the fickle heroine, is well worth catching."
Watson is another singer I believe I was hearing for the first time and if tonight’s performance is anything to go by then I hope to hear much more of her in the future. Hers was one of the best assumptions of the soprano role in The Kingdom that I have heard, whether live or on CD. I think her smiling demeanour helped; that smile was transferred into the sound of her voice. Like her mezzo partner, her tone and diction were clear throughout the performance, and I enjoyed every note she sang. She made an excellent contribution to ‘At the Beautiful Gate’ but she saved her very best for the great soprano aria ‘The sun goeth down’, which closes Part IV. In this extended number the soloist is required to produce a great deal of thoughtfully poetic singing, but rapturous singing is needed in the middle of the aria, as well as the ability for the voice to ride a large Elgarian orchestra in full spate. Watson was equal to all of these challenges and gave a really committed and very moving account of the aria. The subdued end was excellently achieved.
Biography
British/Australian soprano Anita Watson is a graduate from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and the Australian Opera Studio. She was a member of the Cologne Opera Studio and the Jette Parker Young Artist Programme at The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. She has won prizes in many prestigious competitions including the Australian Singing Competition, the Queen Sonja International Music Competition in Oslo, Neue Stimmen in Germany and the Plácido Domingo Operalia competition. She was awarded the first prize and the audience award at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich and the SWR Emmerich-Smola Prize.
As a Jette Parker Young Artist at The Royal Opera House her roles included the title role in Donizetti’s Rita, Gretel and D
Her wider engagements have included The Governess in The Turn of the Screw at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, for the Théâtre du Capitole, Toulouse and for English National Opera; Donna Anna Don Giovanni for Opera Australia, Scottish Opera, the Nederlandse Reisopera, Landestheater Salzburg and the West Australian Opera; Anne Trulove The Rake’s Progress at the Teatro Municipal de Santiago; Pamina The Magic Flute for Welsh National Opera. Further roles have included Fifth Maid Elektra at the Salzburg Festival, Fiordiligi Così fan tutte for Diva Opera, a return to the Royal Opera, London, as First Lady Die Zauberflöte, Mimì La Bohème for Opera North and the Nederlandse Reisopera, Micaëla Carmen for Welsh National Opera, Flowermaiden Parsifal
Anita Watson has appeared worldwide in concerts, recitals and television and radio broadcasts. Particular highlights including Beethoven Symphony No. 9 for the Accademia di Santa Cecilia and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Richard Strauss Four Last Songs with the Rheinische Philharmonie and the Mariinksy Orchestra. Her concert repertoire includes the Brahms, Mozart, Fauré, Dvôrák and Verdi Requiems, Carmina Burana, Rossini Stabat Mater and Petite Messe Solenelle, Poulenc Gloria, Elijah, Haydn’s Nelson Mass and Harmony Mass, Vivaldi Gloria and Magnificat, Mozart Mass in C, Mass in C minor and Vesperae Solennes de Confessore, Szymanowski Stabat Mater, A Child of Our Time, Vaughan Williams’ Dona Nobis Pacem, A Sea Symphony and Elgar’s The Kingdom.
Recordings include Hänsel und Gretel & Dido and Aeneas (Opus Arte/Blu Ray), Ariadne auf Naxos (Chandos), Parsifal (
Conductors with whom she has worked include Julia Jones, Sir Antonio Pappano, Speranza Scappucci, Arie van Beek, Brad Cohen, Sir Colin Davis, Patrick Davin, Andreas Delfs, Sir Mark Elder, Daniele Gatti, Bernard Haitink, Tomáš Hanus, Leo Hussain, Lothar Koenigs, Antonello Manacorda, David Syrus, Sir Jeffrey Tate, Lars Vogt, Mark Wigglesworth, Hilary Davan Wetton and Carlo Rizzi.
Recent engagements include Wayne McGregor’s Morgen for The Royal Ballet, First Lady Die Zauberflöte for The Royal Opera, Dvôrák Requiem and The Kingdom at the Three Choirs Festival and Freia Das Rheingold for Orchestra of the Music Makers, Singapore.
May 2025
For alternative recording material of Anita please follow the link below:
Fata Morgana: Song by Pavel Haas Artists: Lada Valesova (piano) , Anita Watson (soprano) , Anna Starushkevych (mezzo), Nicky Spence (tenor), James Platt (bass), Navarra Quartet
Tracks 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 – Sedam pisni v lidovi tonu Op 18.
https://www.resonusclassics.com/fata-morgana-song-by-pavel-haas-lada-valesova-navarra-quartet
For Oratorio and Concert repertoire please scroll down:
| Composer | Work |
| Bach | St Matthew Passion |
| Beethoven | Mass in C |
| Symphony No. 9 | |
| Brahms | Requiem |
| Duruflé | Requiem |
| Dvorak | Requiem |
| Elgar | The Kingdom |
| Fanshawe
Fauré |
African Sanctus
Requiem |
| Goodall | Invinctus |
| Gounod | The Redemption |
| Handel | Messiah |
| Haydn | Harmoniemesse (Mass No 14) |
| Nelson Messe | |
| Howells | Hymnus Paradisi |
| Jenkins | The Armed Man |
| Linley | A Lyric Ode On the Fairies, Aerial Beings and Witches of Shakespeare |
| Mahler | Symphony No 8 |
| Mendelssohn | Elijah |
| Mozart | Coronation Mass |
| Mass in C minor | |
| Missa Brevis no. 2 in D minor | |
| Requiem | |
| Vesperae Solennes de Confessore | |
| Orff | Carmina Burana |
| Pergolesi | Magnificat in Bb Major |
| Poulenc | Gloria |
| Rossini | Petite Messe Solenelle |
| Stabat Mater | |
| Rutter | Magnificat |
| Stanford | Elegaic Ode |
| Szymanowski | Stabat Mater |
| Tippet | A Child of our Time |
| Vaughan Williams | Dona Nobis Pacem |
| Sea Symphony | |
| Serenade to Music | |
| Verdi | Requiem |
| Vivaldi | Gloria |
| Magnificat | |
| Works with Orchestra | |
| Duparc | |
| L’Invitation au voyage | |
| Au pays où se fait la guerre | |
| La vie antérieure | |
| Le Manoir de Rosemonde | |
| Chanson Triste | |
| Mozart | Ah, lo previdi! (K. 272) |
| Bella mia fiamma … Resta, oh cara | |
| Ravel | 1. Asie |
| 2. La flûte enchantée | |
| 3. L’indifférent | |
| Strauss | Vier letzte lieder |
| 1. Fruhling | |
| 2. September | |
| 3. Beim Schlafengehen | |
| 4. Im Abendrot | |
| Four songs Op. 27 | |
| 1. Ruhe, meine Seele | |
| 2. Cäcilie | |
| 3. Heimliche Aufforderung | |
| 4. Morgen | |
| Wiegenlied (Op. 41/1) | |
| Zueignung | |