The Swedish soprano, Miah Persson, grew up in the provincial town of Hudiksval and as a youngster she sung in choirs and took part in amateur theatre. After living in Paris for a year, she came to Stockholm in 1991 to study lieder, sacred music and opera at the private Conservatoire Kulturama in Sweden. Besides singing she has also studied musicology, piano and conducting. In 1994 she joined Opera Studio 67 in Stockholm and in 1996 continued her studies at the University College of Opera, also in Stockholm. She has also studied privately performance with the American director Talmage Fauntleroy, bel canto with Oscar Figueroa and interpretation with David Harper.
Miah Persson is currently (2004) under contract to the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, where her roles have included Mozart’s Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Engelbert Humperdinck’s Gretel, Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Frasquita (Carmen), Sandrina (La Finta Giardiniera) and Dorinda (Orlando). She made her French debut singing Héro in Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict with the European Union Opera at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées and has performed Scarlatti’s Griselda at the Deutsche Staatsoper, Berlin, and in Innsbruck with René Jacobs - and also Nanetta (Falstaff) at the Aix en Provence Festival and Théâtre des Champs Élysées. More recently she has sung The Governess in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at Frankfurt Opera, Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) with the New Zealand Festival, and Almirena (Rinaldo) in Montpellier and Innsbruck. She has also appeared in New York, Lucerne, and London, with the Frankfurt Opera and at the Théâtre de la Monnaie.
Miah Persson's is also much sought after as a soprano soloist in the major works in the sacred repertoire. Her extensive concert repertoire includes J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel, Haydn, Gabriel Fauré, Mozart and Rossini. She has sung the Mozart Requiem in St Moritz with Vladimir Ashkenazy, and, with the Monteverdi Choir and Sir John Eliot Gardiner, took part in the Bach Pilgrimage in 2000. She sang in Robert Schumann’s Faust Scenes in New York, Lucerne, and London at the Proms where she sang in J.S. Bach’s Magnificat (BWV 243) in the 2000 season. She has also sung with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Philippe Herreweghe. A committed recitalist, she has recorded with Roger Vignoles for the BBC ‘Voices’ programme and given recitals in London’s Wigmore Hall, at the Aix en Provence Festival and at the Royal Opera in Sweden. |