Anthea was born in Leeds and trained as a dancer before studying singing at the Junior Royal Academy of Music, London, and the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester.

On the concert platform, Anthea has sung with the Hallé Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Northern Chamber Orchestra.

For Scottish Opera, she has performed 2nd Witch and Dama (Macbeth, 2005), as well as covering the following roles: Marzelline (Fidelio, 2005), Gretel (Hansel and Gretel, 2005), Flora (The Knot Garden, 2005), Ariadne (The Minotaur, 2004) and Tatyana (Eugene Onegin, Scottish Opera Go Round and On Tour, 2003/04).

Other operatic roles include Clarice (Il mondo della luna, Iford Opera), Tatyana (Onegin, Opera by Definition), Josephine (HMS Pinafore, Carl Rosa Opera Company); Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus, Waterford Festival); Flora La traviata and the Purser Anything Goes (Grange Park Opera; with directors Aiden Lang and David Pountney); Miss Wordsworth (Albert Herring, Young Opera); title role (Semele, Yorke Trust, Norfolk); Susanna & Barbarina (Marriage of Figaro, Garden Opera & Leominster Festival); Giannetta (Elixir of Love, Garden Opera); First Lady (Magic Flute, Buxton Opera House); and Lisa (The Threepenny Opera, Pimlico Opera in collaboration with the inmates of Winchester Prison).