Mezzo-soprano Annie Rosen’s performances have been acclaimed as “fearless,” “intensely present,” and “soul-crushingly vulnerable.” Prior to COVID-19, this season she was to have sung her first Cherubino/Le nozze di Figaro with Opera Omaha, Kashchejevna/Kashchej the Immortal with Chicago Opera Theater, Ruby in Virginia Opera’s new production of Cold Mountain, the title role in L’enfant et les sortilèges with Florentine Opera, and Unborn Child/Die Frau ohne Schatten with The Metropolitan Opera. Given COVID-19, she’s creating digital content for several companies and performing livestream recitals from balconies across Chicago.

Last season, Rosen made her debut live and in HD at The Metropolitan Opera as Ankhesenpaaten/Akhnaten, debuted with Calgary Opera ​as Adalgisa/Norma, and appeared in concert at Carnegie Hall and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Hall. Her last engagement of the season, Wellgunde in Wagner’s complete Ring Cycle with the Lyric Opera of Chicago, was canceled due to COVID-19. Some previous roles have included Suzuki/Madama Butterfly with Central City Opera, Adalgisa/Norma with Utah Opera, and Siébel/Faust with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

An aficionado of new and experimental work, Ms. Rosen joined the Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s Explorations series in 2019 to present a fully staged version of Sarah Kirkland Snider’s one-woman song cycle Penelope. Other fringe work has included a collaboration with L.A.-based director Annie Saunders and the International Contemporary Ensemble to help create The Wreck, a site-specific devised opera based on the poetry of Anne Sexton and the compositions of Mariana Sadovska; a fully staged interpretation of Gyorgy Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments for solo voice and solo violin in New York City, which OperaNews hailed as “a flat-out triumph for its two fearless performers”; and a collaboration with the Hong Kong Ballet in Kurt Weill’s Die Sieben Todsünden.

On the concert stage, Rosen enjoys a relationship with the New York Festival of Song, with whom she most recently performed as a guest alumna at Wolf Trap Opera in a tribute to Steven Blier. She was a founding member of the New York City-based chamber ensemble Cantata Profana, with whom she has performed Berio’s Folk Songs, Ligeti’s Nouvelles aventures, and Thomas Adès’ Life Story. Some of her other recital repertoire has included chants of Hildegard von Bingen, Handel solo cantatas, song cycles by Berlioz and Shostakovich, and world premieres of Hindi and Farsi songs by Indian-American composer Reena Esmail. She is a 2021 semifinalist in the postponed Naumburg Vocal Competition for recitalists.

Rosen was a 2012 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions semifinalist. She holds additional awards from the Gerda Lissner Foundation, the Santa Fe Opera and Central City Opera, and the Connecticut Opera Guild. She is a recipient of the Shoshana Foundation’s Richard F. Gold Career Grant and the Louis Sudler Prize in the Performing and Creative Arts from Yale College. Her apprenticeships included the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Lyric Opera of Chicago. ​A New Haven, CT native, Rosen earned degrees in musicology and performance from Yale University and Mannes College.