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The Estonian mezzo-soprano, Annely Peebo, began her music studies in her country of birth Estonia, where she attended the Viljandi Music School for Children and the Tallinn Secondary School of Music, where she studied piano and conducting. She gained a diploma for choral conducting and completed vocal studies in song and opera. After graduating from the Secondary School of Music, she sang for four years in the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under the conductor Tõnu Kaljuste. In 1994 she went to study the art of Lieder singing and musicology at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna with the renauned professor Gerhard Kahry (1997).
In 1997, Annely Peebo became a permanent ensemble member of the Wiener Staatsoper, where she sang in Rigoletto and many other operas. At the Vienna Festival in 2001, she sang the role of Meroe in the first performance of the expressionistic opera, Penthesilea (Ofenbauer) by Othmar Schoeck (after Heinrich von Kleist). She sang this opera also on on tour in Japan. At the Salzburg Festival in 2002, she performed works by Mozart and Gershwin. She also performed together with Plácido Domingo, Renato Bruson, and Stefania Bonfadelli. She has performed as a mezzo-soprano soloist on various occasions also at the Vienna Volksopera. She has performed in such operas as Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, Rossini's La Cenerentola, Mozart's Don Giovanni and many others. Her performance in the Georg Frideric Handel’s opera Orlando in February 2001 was especially popular.
In 2002 Annely Peebo represented her home country Estonia in front of a multi-billion audience by hosting the Eurovision Song Contest in Tallinn. Likewise in Tallinn she performed with Andrea Bocelli at an open-air concert in the summer 2003. She was the leading lady in an award-winning international music film Les lecons de tenebres in a co-production with television channels France 3 and Arte. In 2003 TOYP (The Outstanding Young Person of Switzerland) named her Woman of the Year. During the same year she sang L.v. Beethoven’s 9th Symphony on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the pontificate of John Paul II at the Vatican. In 2005 she hosted and performed at the EXPO in Japan.
With Juan Diego Florez and Grace Bumbry, Annely Peebo sang in winter 2006 the traditional concert “Christmas in Vienna” (DVD available). She has been working and singing in opera houses like Teatro La Scala in Milan, Teatro San Carlo di Napoli, Teatro Carlo Felice di Genova, Teatro Reggio di Torino, Finnish National Opera, Opera de Nancy, Caen and Lyon, just to mention a few. At the Wiener Staatsoper/Volksoper and many other important houses she was able to develop a wide-range repertoire including roles such as Cenerentola, Rosina, Dorabella, Donna Elvira, Cherubino, Sextus, Idamante, Hänsel, Carmen, Marquise Melibea, Octavian, Boccaccio, Henry, Niklaus, Komponist, Medoro, Dido, Hermia, Maddalena, Orlofsky, 2nd or 3rd Lady. etc. She was seen in a Cenerentola production at the festival in Aix-en-Provence. Newspapers in Salzburg praised the appearance of the Estonian mezzo-soprano Annely Peebo at the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg in Dvorak’s Stabat mater: “A marvellously velvety timbre matched with the face of a Madonna and “A technically superb voice.”
Annely Peebo has worked closely with distinguished conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Maurizio Barbacini, Bertrand de Billy, Frühbeck de Burgos, Ottavio Dantone, Russel Davies, Plácido Domingo, Thomas Hengelbrock, Christopher Hogwood, Manfred Honeck, Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi and Kristian Järvi, Tõnu Kaljuste, Eri Klas Lothar Königs, Ton Koopman, Gerard Korsten, Fabio Luisi, Sir Neville Marriner, Georges Pretre, Ulf Schirmer, Stefan Soltesz, and.many others. Further more she has worked with with numerous well-known stage directors such as Michael Hampe in the role as Dorabella in W.A. Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutte at Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova and in W.A. Mozart's The Magic Flute at the Megaron Moussikis in Athens. She also worked with the world famous Franco Zifferelli in La Traviata in Bussetto, Ravenna, Reggio Emilia, Ferrara and Parma (now available on DVD). She also had the hounor to participate in the last production of Giorgio Strehler. It was Cosi fan tutte at Piccolo Teatro in Milano, also performed in Lisbon, Ravenna and Reggio Emilia. She has also worked with Robert Carsen in G.F. Handel’s Orlando in Ravenna and Reggio Emilia; Dario Fo in Il viaggio a Reims at the Finnish national opera in Helsinki, Stephane Braunschweig in Jenufa at the La Scala, William Kentridge in Zauberflöte and with Philippe Arlaud in a new production of Cosi fan tutte at the Opéra de Nancy, which was also performed in Caen, Lyon and in the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Niklaus at the Savonlinna Festival in Offenbach’s Le Contes d’Hoffmann (director: G. Horres).
Annely Peebo is also sought-after Baroque and recital singer. She has been performing in Vienna, Cagliari, Trieste, Rome, Florence, Torino (with Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI), Paris, Madrid, Bonn, Bamberg, Munich Helsinki, Stockholm, Tallinn, Bregenz, etc. She performed several times in the Philharmonic Concert Hall of Berlin and Munich, Tallinn, Stockholm, Riga, Auditorium RAI, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, at the Wiener Musikverein, at the Beethovenhalle Bonn, Liederhalle Stuttgart, and the Wiener Konzerthaus as well as at the Salzburger, Bregenzer and Schubertiader Festivals among others. Her extensive concert repertoire covers the most important works of J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann, Mozart, Haydn, L.v. Beethoven, Dvorak, Rossini, Schubert, Robert Schumann, Bruckner, Berlioz, Johannes Brahms, Gustav Mahler, Dmitri Shostakovich, R. Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg, Verdi (Requiem), etc.
Annely Peebo is currently working at the Vienna Volksoper and guest performing in other opera houses. She performs always in Estonia, if the schedule allows. Besides opera and concert performances she has also worked and performed in crossover projects. She has been invited several times to perform in exclusive events. Highlight of 2010 was her fantastic debut in Carmen at the Volksoper Wien; this production will be reprise in 2011. She speaks five languages. |
