Elīna Garanča [b. 1976] is a Latvian mezzo-soprano from Riga. She comes from a highly musical family; her father is a choral director and her mother is a voice teacher and also a professor of music. Garanča began her own vocal studies at the age of 20 [1996] at the Latvian Academy of Music, with follow-on instruction in Vienna and the United States—the latter with former soprano Virginia Zeani, who was named [Voice] Teacher of the Year in 2010 by Classical Singer magazine.
Early in her professional career, Garanča won a singing competition in Finland [1999] and another in her home country [2000], after which she was engaged by the Frankfurt Opera to appear in several productions. Her most striking performance there was as Rosina in Rossini’s Il barbiere di Sevilla, also the role she sang in her Metropolitan Opera debut in January 2008. In 2001, Garanča was a finalist in the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition, but her true operatic breakthrough came in 2003. That year, she sang Annio in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at the Salzburg Festival and also enjoyed a guest appearance alongside Anna Netrebko in an extended selection from Lucia di Lammermoor that was being recorded for the Russian soprano’s debut CD, “Opera Arias.” The two women have continued their professional relationship, most recently appearing together as Anna Bolena (Netrebko) and Giovanna Seymour (Garanča) in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena at the Vienna Staatsoper in May 2011.
[The pair were to reprise their respective roles at New York’s Metropolitan Opera to open the 2011–12 season, but Garanča was forced to withdraw due to pregnancy. She and her husband, conductor Karel Chichon, welcomed a daughter on September 30, 2011.]
Mezzo-soprano roles in opera are fewer and generally lower-profile than those of the soprano voice, but one of the most famous in the repertoire is the title role in Bizet’s Carmen. The naturally blonde Garanča donned a raven-haired wig for the Met’s new production in 2010—seen around the world thanks to “The Met in HD,” a program that offers satellite broadcasts to movie theaters—and performed to rave reviews for her singing as well as her acting. The production has been preserved on a Deutsche Grammophon DVD (for whom Garanča records exclusively), as was an earlier performance as Cinderella in the Rossini opera La cenerentola.
Garanča sings the “Seguidilla” from Bizet’s Carmen (tenor Roberto Alagna is Don Jose) at the Metropolitan Opera [2010]:
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