Anja Silja is set to be honored with a lifetime achievement award at the 2026 Austrian Music Theatre Prize.

The organizers praised Silja for her indelible impact on music theatre of the second half of the 20th century.

In a statement, Karl-Michael Ebner, founder and president of the Austrian Music Theatre Prize said, “Anja Silja didn’t interpret roles, she made them her own — with a directness that was often foreign to the musical theatre of her generation… Where others sought fidelity to the work, she sought access to the character, its contradictions, its depths. It is this unconditional commitment to the role that we are honoring with the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ Prize.”

Silja made her debut in 1956 at the Braunschweig State Theatre as Rosina in “The Barber of Seville” and went on to appear at many of the great opera houses including the Bayreuth Festival, Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Paris Opera, and Vienna State Opera. In 2012 she was honored in New York City with an Opera News Award.

The Austrian Music Theatre Prize will be held on Sept. 8 at the Votive Church in Vienna.