Elina Garanča

Elina Garanča - „Love & Despair“

The young mezzo-soprano Elina Garanča has quickly established herself as one of the music world’s stars through her performances with leading opera theaters and symphony orchestras around the world. She has captured critical and popular acclaim for her beautiful voice, intelligent musicianship, and compelling stage portrayals.

The 2010-11 season started with Ms Garanca embarking on a major European Concert Tour and making a return to the MET for a revival of Carmen. She also sang with the Berliner Philharmoniker & Gustavo Dudamel in a series of New Year (Silvester) Concerts. To complete the season, she will sing the role of Giovanna Seymour in Donizetti's Anna Bolena at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona and at Zurich Opera, as well as performing in concert with Maestros Riccardo Muti, Paavo Järvi and Karel Mark Chichon and giving various recitals in Europe.

Highlights of Ms Garanča’s 2009-10 season included her critically acclaimed house debut in the title role of Bizet’s Carmen at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden. She reprised this role in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera which was broadcast in more than one thousand cinemas worldwide.

Besides for Carmen, Elina Garanča’s signature roles include Charlotte in Werther, Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Dorabella in Cosi fan tutte, Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, Adalgisa in Norma, and Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro and Dorabella in La clemenza di Tito, roles she sung all over the world.

Elina Garanča began her professional career as a resident artist with the Südthüringischer Staatstheater in Meiningen where she appeared in a number of leading roles. Later, as a resident artist with the Frankfurt Opera, she appeared as Rosina, Dorabella, and Hänsel in Hänsel und Gretel.

Ms. Garanča was born into a musical family in Riga, Latvia.  In 1996 she entered the Latvian Academy of Music and studied with her mother, a well-known mezzo-soprano, and since 1998 she has studied with various teachers in Vienna, Amsterdam, and the United States. She won the Mirjam Helin Singing Competition in 1999 and was a finalist in the 2001 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.

In 2005 Elina Garanča became an exclusive recording artist with Deutsche Grammophon.