Katarina Karnéus

Katarina Esmé Marie Karnéus (born November 26, 1965) is a Swedish mezzo-soprano opera singer, winner of the BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition and active on many of the opera world's major stages such as the Metropolitan Opera and the Paris Opera.

Karnéus was born in ; her mother is English, who after having spent 30 years in Sweden returned to England in 1987.

She studied at Trinity College of Music in London, where her appearances included Miss Donnithorne’s Maggot (Maxwell Davies) and Thérèse (Tavener), and after at the National Opera Studio also in London, sponsored by the Welsh National Opera. At her audition for London Opera Studio course, the general manager of Welsh National Opera arranged for her to join a tour of Cenerentola around small theatres in Wales. However, when a principal on the main company tour was taken ill she sang Rossini’s title role for them in the full staging at a few days notice.

She won the Cardiff Singer of the World competition in 1995, which immediately launched an international career. The years following saw her appear as the page in Salome in Chicago, Varvara in Káťa Kabanová in New York, Dorabella at Glyndebourne, Rosina at the Opéra-Comique in Paris and Mercédès in Carmen at the Opéra Bastille.

She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on January 2, 1999 singing Varvara in Káťa Kabanová and went on to sing there as Olga in Eugene Onegin, Siebel in Faust, Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro, and Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia. In 1999 she also made her debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper singing Annio in La clemenza di Tito. She returned to Bayerische Staatsoper in 2000 for Sesto in the same opera and again in 2001 for Sesto and Dorabella in Così fan tutte. She worked with her teacher Noelle Barker in 1999 in preparation for her first Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, at Cardiff in June 2000.

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