Anna-Luise Wagner is a German soprano and linguist based in London. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, researching the seventeenth-century opera singer, writer, and courtesan Margherita Costa. Alongside her studies, Anna worked as dramaturg and translator on high-profile opera productions in Germany, Austria, Italy, and the US, including the world premiere of Liszt’s incomplete opera Sardanapalo in 2018 and Barrie Kosky’s staging of Offenbach’s Orphée aux enfers at the Salzburg Opera Festival 2019.

During lockdown, Anna founded Marginalia, an interdisciplinary performance collective bringing academic research to life on stage. With Marginalia, she has recently performed the role of Gretel in a new retelling of Humperdinck’s fairytale opera, and Juliet in A rose by another name, a devised piece fusing Shakespeare’s words with extracts from Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi.

As a soprano with a ‘warm and generous’ voice (Opera Magazine), Anna’s repertoire ranges from early baroque opera to contemporary pieces. Her recent performance as ‘a genuinely funny Cherubino’ (Plays to See) in Ensemble OrQuesta’s Le nozze di Figaro at the Arcola Theatre earned her an OFFIE Award nomination for Best Performance. Further onstage highlights include title role/Partenope (Festivals Malta and Hampstead Garden Opera) conducted by Antonio Florio at the historic Teatru Manoel for the The Three Palaces Early Opera & Music Festival in Valletta; Cherubino/The Marriage of Figaro (Opera Project and Tobacco Factory); title role/Agrippina, Belinda/Dido and Aeneas, Susanna/Le nozze di Figaro, and Dema/L’Egisto with Hampstead Garden Opera; Dorine/Céphale et Procris by Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Amore and Damigella/L’incoronazione di Poppea, and Fatime/Les Indes galantes with Ensemble OrQuesta, where she is a company member; Gretel/Hansel & Gretel and Juliet/Juliet & Romeo with Marginalia; Clorinda/La Cenerentola (Random Opera); The Artist/hunger by Joanna Ward (Edinburgh Festival Fringe); as well as several roles with Cambridge University Opera including Cleopatra/Giulio Cesare, Micaëla/Carmen, Adina/L’elisir d’amore, title role/Sāvitri, and Despina/Così fan tutte. In concert, Anna has performed the roles of Galatea/Acis and Galatea (Haslingfield Choir) and Cupid, Venus and Honour/King Arthur (St Michael's Choir). Upcoming performances include Zerlina/Don Giovanni with Ensemble OrQuesta.

As a concert soloist, Anna’s performances include Bach’s St Matthew Passion and Magnificat, Händel’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day, Haydn’s Nelson Mass, Mozart’s Coronation Mass, Great Mass in C minor and Requiem, Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Brahms’s Liebeslieder and Neue Liebeslieder, Fauré’s Requiem, Britten’s A Ceremony of Carols and Dyson’s The Canterbury Pilgrims. Upcoming performances include Saint-Saëns’s Oratorio de Noël, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem and Verdi’s Requiem. Anna is also a keen recitalist and has created the title role of Green Opera’s Fillu, a Lieder-opera telling the love story of Eugenie Schumann, daughter of Clara and Robert, and the Austrian soprano Marie Fillunger.

Anna studies privately with Marcus van den Akker, Principal Study Professor at the Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School of Music & Drama. In masterclasses and coaching sessions, she has worked with Dame Emma Kirkby, Lionel Friend, Anthony Legge, John Ramster, Nicholas Mulroy, and Michael Chance.