Anna Netrebko is a famous opera singer, the People’s Artist of Russia (2008), and the winner of the State Award 2004 in the field of culture and art. In May, 2007 she was included into the list of the hundred most influential people of the world according to the Time Magazine. A citizen of Russia, she obtained the citizenship of Austria “for special merits” in July, 2006.

Anna Netrebko was born in Krasnodar on September 18, 1971. Her mother was an engineer, and her father was a geologist.
As a child Anna Netrebko was a soloist of the Kuban Pioneering ensemble, which toured all over the country.
After school she entered the Leningrad Conservatory, where she studied under Professor Tamara Novichenko.
In 1993 Anna Netrebko won at the M. I. Glinka Competition in Smolensk and was invited to the Mariinsky Theater where had an extensive repertoire with the conductor Valery Gergiev who "discovered" her. Anna Netrebko was so preoccupied at the theater that could not graduate from the conservatory. In two months after joining the theater she sang in the opera Ruslan and Lyudmila in San Francisco. Afterwards she was invited for 3-month training in America.

Now Anna Netrebko performs at the best stages of the world. She has contracts with the leading opera theaters and sound recording firms.
Since 2006 she has lived in Vienna as a citizen of Austria. She is married to the Uruguayan baritone Ervin Shrott, whom she met in 2003. Their son Tyago Arza was born in 2008.
Prizes and Awards:
* Russian music award Casta Diva (1998)
* St. Petersburg’s highest theatrical award Gold Floodlights (1999)
* RF State Award in the field of literature and art (2005).