Best known for her roles in Wagner's music dramas and concert performances of Mahler, Swedish mezzo-soprano Anna Larsson rose to prominence in the 1990s. She studied at the Adolf Fredrik's Music School and the University College of Opera in Stockholm. On-stage, she made her operatic debut in 1997, singing the role of Erda in Das Rheingold, with Daniel Barenboim conducting at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Berlin. Subsequently, she added the parts of Waltraute, Kundry, and Brangäne to her list of Wagnerian heroines. As an interpreter of Mahler, she made her concert debut in the Symphony No. 2 in C minor, "Resurrection," with the Berlin Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado, and in the Symphony No. 3 in D minor with the Dusseldorf Symphony conducted by Adam Fischer. She has also sung Brahms' Alto Rhapsody with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Paavo Berglund, and recorded it with Thomas Dausgaard and the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. Her recording of Richard Strauss' Daphne with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne led by Semyon Bychkov, brought her a Grammy nomination in 2005. In 2014, the King of Sweden awarded her the Royal Medal "Litteris et Artibus." Larsson and her husband Göran Eliasson are major promoters of the Dalhalla opera, and they built and inaugurated the Vattnäs Concert Barn near Orsa Lake in the Swedish province of Dalarna, and became involved with the summer opera festival held in a limestone quarry (Dalhalla Open Air Theater) in Darlecarlia. Larsson produced Wagner's Das Rheingold in 2013 and Puccini's Turandot in 2015, casting Nina Stemme as Turandot, and appeared in her own right as Carmen in 2016. ~ Blair Sanderson