We use cookies to analyse data about our visitors, to improve our website, to display personalised content and to give you a great website experience.
We use cookies to analyse data about our visitors, to improve our website, to display personalised content and to give you a great website experience. Cookie policy
PKF – Prague Philharmonia, Karel Mark Chichon – conductor
One of the most remarkable personalities of the contemporary opera world, Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča returns to Prague and will introduce music from her successful CD Meditation.
Few singers attain the stature of Elīna Garanča, who over the past decade has emerged as one of opera’s brightest stars. Elīna Garanča regularly performs at the world’s leading opera houses and concert stages, including the Metropolitan Opera, Royal Opera House, Bavarian State Opera, and Vienna State Opera. Since becoming an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist in 2005 three of her solo albums won the ECHO Klassik Award.
It was Elīna Garanča’s triumphant 2003 Salzburg Festival debut, as Annio in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, that was responsible for her international breakthrough. In 2003, she also made her Vienna State Opera debut as Lola in Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and became a regular; to date, she has sung more than 150 performances with the company including two roles on which she would indelibly put her stamp: Octavian in R. Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier and Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther.
Debuts in Covent Garden and Berlin State Opera soon followed. For her sensational Metropolitan Opera debut on 12th January 2008, she sang Rosina (Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia), a role with which her name was already synonymous in Europe. She soon included Bizet’s Carmen among her signature roles, she sang the role at the Met and it was broadcasted Live in HD (2010), along with her Angelina in Rossini’s La cenerentola (2009), and Sesto in La clemenza di Tito (2012). In 2015, she introduced herself as Carmen in La Scala and soon she returned to the house as Santuzza in Cavaleria rusticana. With Anna Netrebko, she made a dream couple in Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi (DVD Deutsche Grammophon, 2009) as well as in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena in Vienna State Opera (DVD Deutsche Grammophon, 2011).
The artists’s engementens for the 2015/2016 season include Charlotte (Werther) at the Vienna State Opera and Paris National Opera, Léonor de Guzman (Donizetti: La favorite) at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Sara (Donizetti: Roberto Devereux) at the Metropolitan Opera. A sought-after concert artist, she performs in concerts with such conductors as Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Muti, Gustavo Dudamel, Paavo Järvi, and Karel Mark Chichon. In 2013, her book Wirklich wichtig sind die Schuhe (The Shoes Are Really Important) was released by Ecowin Verlag, where the singer explains: “My feet must feel free so that my soul and voice can soar.”
Elīna Garanča was born into a musical family in Riga, Latvia, where her father was a choral conductor and her mother a singer, under whom she learned at the Latvian Academy of Music before continuing her studies in Vienna and the United States. A laureate of Finland’s 1999 Mirjam Helin Singing Competition, Garanča was a finalist in the 2001 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition and won Musical America’s “Vocalist of the Year” 2010 and MIDEM Classical’s “Singer of the Year” 2010. In 2013, she was named the Kammersängerin in Austria.
JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750)
Air
from Suite No 3 in D major, BWV 1068
arr. Karel Mark Chichon
CHARLES GOUNOD (1818–1893)
Repentir
Elīna Garanča
arr. Karel Mark Chichon
GAETANO DONIZETTI (1797–1848)
Prelude to Act I
La Favorite
GAETANO DONIZETTI
Que faire – Sol adoré de la patrie (Zayda)
Elīna Garanča
Dom Sébastien, Roi de Portugal, Act II
GIUSEPPE VERDI (1813–1901)
Overture
La forza del destino
GIUSEPPE VERDI
Pace, pace mio Dio! (Leonora)
Elīna Garanča
La forza del destino, Act IV
interval
AMILCARE PONCHIELLI (1834–1886)
Dance of Hours
La Gioconda
FRANCESCO CILÈA (1886–1950)
Ecco, respiro appena... Io son l’umile ancella (Adriana)
Elīna Garanča
Adriana Lecouvreur, Act I
PIETRO MASCAGNI (1863–1945)
Intermezzo
Cavalleria rusticana
PIETRO MASCAGNI
Voi lo sapete, o mamma (Santuzza)
Elīna Garanča
Cavalleria rusticana
GEORGES BIZET (1838–1875)
Menuet & Farandole
from L’Arlésienne Suite No 2
GEORGES BIZET
Les tringles des sistres tintaient (Chanson bohemienne – Carmen)
Elīna Garanča
Carmen, Act II
