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The Latvian soprano, Inga Kalna, attended the the E.Darzins Music School in Riga; and completed her musicology studies at the Latvian Academy of Music with Bachelor of Music degree. Then she studied voice at the same academy and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she graduated receiving the DipRAM, the highest award for performance.
After a very successful debut as Pamina in W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, Inga Kalna she joined at the Latvian National Opera as a soloist, where she performed parts such as Mimi in Puccini's La Bohème and Gilda in Rigoletto and took on title roles in Lucia di Lammermoor and George Frideric Handel's Alcina. In London she made quite an impression as La Contessa in W.A. Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro, with the orchestra conducted by Sir Colin Davis. She has twice been awarded the Latvian Theatre Prize for excellent performances, and is one of the few artists who has been given the Great Music Award of Latvia three times in tribute to her outstanding achievements. In the UK she has received the Goldberg Operatic Prize and the Bruce Miller Memorial Trust Award. In Germany, she was awarded the Wilhelm-Oberdörfer-Preis.
In 1999 Inga Kalna became a soloist at the International Opera Studio of the Hamburgische Staatsoper. The audience came to appreciate her convincing performances as Barena in Janacek's Jenufa, as La Dama in Macbeth as well as Olympia, Antonia und Stella in Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann. During the following season she was admired as Adina in L'Elisir d'Amore, Xenia in Boris Godunov, Gilda in Rigoletto, Lucia in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and as a breathtaking Violetta in La Traviata. She has been a member of the Hamburg Opera ensemble since the season of 2001-2002 until 2006-2007. She enchanted the Hamburg audience in operas such as La Bohème, Boris Godunov and Alcina among others. Moreover, she was brilliant in leading roles of the new productions of Hans Werner Henze's We Come to the River, Dialogues des Carmelites by Francis Poulenc and Reinhard Keiser's Der Lächerliche Prinz Jodelet. Other engagements have taken her to the Nederlanse Opera, the Vlaamse Opera, the opera houses in Tampere (Finnland), Lausanne and Toulouse and the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. She made her Salzburg Festival debut in 2006 as the First Lady in Die Zauberflöte. A year later she was heard for the first time as G.F. Handel's Alcina at the Opéra National de Paris. In 2009 she made her La Scala debut in the same role.
Inga Kalna enjoys particularly close working relationship with two conductors: under Marc Minkowski she has been heard as Alcina at Wiener Staatsoper, as Piacere in G.F. Handel's Il trionfo del Tempo at the Berlin State Opera and as Cinna in W.A. Mozart's Lucio Silla at the 2013 Salzburg Mozart Week Festival; and under René Jacobs she appeard at the Dresden Music Festival, the Innsbruck Early Music Festival, the Berlin State Opera and the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence.
In addition to the foregoing roles, Inga Kalna's vast repertoire also includes W.A. Mozart's Donna Anna, Fiordiligi and Elettra, Verdi's Desdemona, Leonora and Violetta, Rossini's Donna Fiorilla in Il turco in Italia and the title rolesin Donizetti's Maria Stuarda, Bellini's Norma and G.F. Handel's Agrippina and Rodelinda.
In addition to her comprehensive opera repertoire, Inga Kalna has fascinated her audiences with J.S. Bach's Passion music and requiems and masses by L.v. Beethoven, Charles Gounod, W.A. Mozart, Johannes Brahms, Verdi and Gabriel Fauré. She also has sung Vier Letzte Lieder by Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4. These productions were made under conductors such as Gerd Albrecht, Ottavio Dantone, Sir Colin Davis, Alfred Eschwe, René Jacobs, Ingo Metzmacher, Andris Nelsons, Stefan Soltesz, Marc Soustrot, Riccardo Muti, Andrea Marcon, and Simone Young.
On CD Inga Kalna may be heard in G.F. Handel's Rinaldo and W.A. Mozart's Die Zauberflöte under René Jacobs, in Antonio Vivaldi's Motezuma under Alan Curtis and Paul Hindemith's Mathis der Maler under Simone Young. |
