Ewa Podles
Encyclopedia
Ewa Podleś (ˈɛva ˈpodlɛɕ; born on April 26, 1952 in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

) is an internationally celebrated Polish
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

 coloratura
Coloratura
Coloratura has several meanings. The word is originally from Italian, literally meaning "coloring", and derives from the Latin word colorare . When used in English, the term specifically refers to elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and...

 contralto
Contralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...

 with a very wide vocal range (up to soprano high D) and great vocal agility.

After studying at the Warsaw Academy of Music under Madame Bolechowska, Podleś made her stage debut as Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville
The Barber of Seville, or The Futile Precaution is an opera buffa in two acts by Gioachino Rossini with a libretto by Cesare Sterbini. The libretto was based on Pierre Beaumarchais's comedy Le Barbier de Séville , which was originally an opéra comique, or a mixture of spoken play with music...

 in 1975. Podleś made her Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...

 debut on February 14, 1984, singing the title role in Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

's Rinaldo
Rinaldo (opera)
Rinaldo is an opera by George Frideric Handel composed in 1711. It is the first Italian language opera written specifically for the London stage. The libretto was prepared by Giacomo Rossi from a scenario provided by Aaron Hill. The work was first performed at the Queen's Theatre in London's...

, but only for a few performances that year (from which only two were in the Met's House), and was notably absent from the Met for more than 24 years, since then pursuing her career elsewhere and performing regularly at all other major opera houses in Europe and America. In May 2003, she was in a car accident in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...

 and suffered a broken arm. Her return to the Met took place on September 24, 2008, when she sang the role of La Cieca in Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli
Amilcare Ponchielli was an Italian composer, largely of operas.-Biography:Born in Paderno Fasolaro, now Paderno Ponchielli, near Cremona, Ponchielli won a scholarship at the age of nine to study music at the Milan Conservatory, writing his first symphony by the time he was ten years old.Two years...

's La Gioconda
La Gioconda (opera)
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...

.

Though known mainly for her Baroque works, Podleś's repertoire ranges from Handel's Giulio Cesare
Giulio Cesare
Giulio Cesare in Egitto , commonly known simply as Giulio Cesare, is an Italian opera in three acts written for the Royal Academy of Music by George Frideric Handel in 1724...

 (Cesare) to songs by Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

. Right at the center of her abilities, however, are the contralto roles (some of them "trouser" roles) of Rossini. She is also a specialist in Russian works. She has frequently been labeled a "force of nature."

Her recent performances include roles of La Cieca in La Gioconda, Bertarido in Handel's Rodelinda, the title role in Rossini's Tancredi
Tancredi
Tancredi is a melodramma eroico in two acts by composer Gioachino Rossini and librettist Gaetano Rossi, based on Voltaire's play Tancrède...

, the title role in Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto, Isabella in Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri
L'italiana in Algeri is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini to an Italian libretto by Angelo Anelli, based on his earlier text set by Luigi Mosca...

, Erda in Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

's Ring Cycle at the Seattle Opera, and Klytämnestra in Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

's Elektra with the Canadian Opera Company
Canadian Opera Company
The Canadian Opera Company is an opera company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest opera company in Canada and the third largest producer of opera in North America. The COC performs in its own opera house, the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts.-History:For 40 years until...

. She was scheduled to appear as Azucena in Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

's Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...

 at the Atlanta Opera in March 2009, but apparently cancelled.

Ewa Podleś and her husband, the accomplished pianist Jerzy Marchwinski, live in Warsaw, Poland.

External links


Recordings

Audio CD
  • Airs Célebres (Handel, Vivaldi, Purcell, Gluck, and Marcello)
  • Chopin: Mélodies with Abdel Rahman "El Bacha"
  • Chopin: Songs with Garrick Ohlsson
  • de Falla: El Amor Brujo with Krzysztof Penderecki
  • Duets (Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schumann) with Joanna Kozlowska and Jerzy Marchwinski (piano)
  • Gluck: Armide as La Haine with Marc Minkowski
  • Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice as Orfeo with Peter Maag
  • Gluck: Orphée et Eurydice as Orphée with Patrick Preire
  • Handel Arias from Rinaldo and Orlando with Constantin Orbelian
  • Handel: Ariodante as Polinesso with Marc Minkowski
  • Mahler: Symphony No.2: Resurrection with Jean-Claude Casadesus
  • Mahler: Symphony No.3 with Antoni Wit
  • Mozart: Requiem with Michel Corboz & L'Ensemble Vocal et Instrumental de Lausanne
  • Offenbach: Orphée aux Enfers as L'Opinion publique
  • Penderecki: Seven Gates of Jerusalem with Kazimierz Kord
  • Penderecki: Te Deum and Lacrimosa
  • Ewa Podles & Garrick Ohlsson Live
  • Ptaszynska: Concerto for Marimba; Songs of Despair and Loneliness
  • Prokofiev: Alexandr Nevsky with JC Casadesus
  • Puccini: Il Trittico with Bruno Bertoletti
  • Respighi: Il Tramonto with Michel Nesterowicz
  • Rossini Arias for Contralto with Pier Giorgio Morandi
  • Rossini Gala with W Michniewski
  • Rossini: Tancredi as Tancredi with A Zedda
  • Russian Melodies with Constantin Orbelian
  • A Treasury of Polish Songs with Ewa Poblocka


DVD
  • Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto as Cornelia from Barcelona Opera
  • Donizetti: La fille du régiment as "Marquise de Berkenfield"
  • Ponchielli: La gioconda as "La cieca" from Barcelona Opera
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