Elina Garanca
The career of mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča had a meteoric rise following the 2003 Salzburg Festival, where she appeared to acclaim in Mozart's La Clemenza di Tito. As critics and admirers attest, her vocal talent is immense. She has appeared on several chart-topping recordings with Anna Netrebko and on the Grammy-winning Vivaldi opera album Bajazet, with soprano Patrizia Ciofi. Garanča was obviously chosen for those successful efforts because of the beauty of her creamy, powerful voice and her extraordinary dramatic skills. Garanča possesses a large repertory of operatic roles, and her concert and recital repertory is also broad.
Garanča was born on September 16, 1976, in Riga, Latvia, then part of the Soviet Union. Both of her parents were professional musicians: her father was a choral conductor, and her mother was a singer and voice teacher at the Latvian Academy of Music and Latvian National Opera. In 1996, she enrolled at that same academy and studied voice with Sergei Martinov, and later studied in Austria and the U.S. Garanča had a watershed year in 1999. She became a member of the Meiningen Opera (Südthüringisches Staatstheater) and also won the Mirjam Helin Singing Competition in Finland. The following year, she joined the Frankfurt Opera, where she sang several roles, including Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville. In 2001, her first recording, Arie Favorite, featuring arias by Mozart, Donizetti, and Bellini, was issued on the Ondine label. Garanča followed her 2003 Salzburg Festival triumph with a string of impressive debuts, including at the Vienna State Opera (2004) and Paris Opera (2005), both in the role of Dorabella.
Garanča signed an exclusive recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon in 2005, the first fruits coming in 2006 with the Mozart Album, which also featured Netrebko. Garanča's 2008 debut at the Metropolitan Opera was a sensation, and she followed with equally impressive performances at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin in Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich in Bellini's Norma. Among her subsequent recordings was Aria Cantilena on Deutsche Grammophon, a collection of songs and arias by Offenbach, Villa-Lobos, and others.
Along with Deutsche Grammophon and Ondine, Garanča's recordings are available on Virgin Classics, TDK, and Erato, among others. The 2010s saw continued triumphs for Garanča, both on the operatic stage and in the recording studio, including being named Vocalist of the Year in 2010 by Musical America. Romantique, her recording of arias with the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, won the prestigious ECHO Klassik award in 2013. Several other Garanča albums, including 2016's Revive and 2017's Mozart and Vivaldi, have been thematically organized collections of arias from major operas. On-stage, she has continued to favor mainstream Italian and French roles, returning to the Metropolitan Opera in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux in 2016, and she starred in a Staatsoper Berlin production of Samson et Dalila in the 2019-2020 season, under Daniel Barenboim. Garanča's 2019 release, Sol y Vida, earned her the Singer of the Year award from Opus Klassik in 2020. She joined Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin on a recording of Elgar's Sea Pictures, which was issued in 2020.
Garanča is married to conductor Karel Mark Chichon, with whom she has two daughters. She is the author of an autobiography, Wirklich wichtig sind die Schuhe.
© Robert Cummings & James Manheim /TiVo
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When Night Falls ...
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 15 Mar 2024
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Schumann & Brahms Lieder
Elina Garanca, Malcolm Martineau
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 6 Nov 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Revive
Elina Garanca, Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, Roberto Abbado
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 4 Nov 2016
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Sol y Vida
Elina Garanca, Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria, Karel Mark Chichon
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 10 May 2019
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Meditation
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 15 Sep 2014
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder / Mahler: Rückert Lieder (Live from Salzburg)
Elina Garanca, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Christian Thielemann
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 3 Dec 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder / Mahler: Rückert Lieder (Live from Salzburg)
Elina Garanca, Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra, Christian Thielemann
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 3 Dec 2021
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Best Of Elina Garanca
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 2013
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Habanera
Elina Garanca, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, Karel Mark Chichon
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 2010
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Romantique
Elina Garanca, Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Yves Abel
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 2012
Gramophone Editor's Choice16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bel Canto
Elina Garanca, Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Roberto Abbado
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
"The Opera Gala - Live from Baden-Baden"
Anna Netrebko, Elina Garanca, Ramón Vargas, Ludovic Tezier, SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden und Freiburg, Marco Armiliato
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 22 Oct 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Bel Canto
Elina Garanca, Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Roberto Abbado
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Elina Garanca sings Mozart & Vivaldi
Classical - Released by Erato - Warner Classics on 12 May 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Elgar: Sea Pictures. Falstaff
Elina Garanca, Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 24 Jul 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Elgar: Sea Pictures. Falstaff
Elina Garanca, Staatskapelle Berlin, Daniel Barenboim
Classical - Released by Decca Music Group Ltd. on 24 Jul 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
The Mozart Album
Anna Netrebko, Elina Garanca, Thomas Quasthoff, Bryn Terfel, René Pape
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Beethoven: Zärtliche Liebe, WoO 123 "Ich liebe dich" (Musical Moments)
Elina Garanca, Malcolm Martineau
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 18 Dec 2020
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Aria Cantilena
Elina Garanca, Staatskapelle Dresden, Fabio Luisi
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 1 Jan 2006
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Opera Arias (Favourite): Garanca, Elina - MOZART, W.A. / ROSSINI, G. / BELLINI, V. / DONIZETTI, G. / MASSENET, J.
Elina Garanca, Latvian National Symphony Orchestra, Aleksandrs Vilumanis
Opera - Released by Ondine on 1 Jan 2001
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Parra: Gracias a la vida (Arr. del Rey)
Elina Garanca, Johanne-Valerie Gelinas, Diego Val, Francisco Navarro, José Maria Gallardo del Rey
Classical - Released by Deutsche Grammophon (DG) on 3 May 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo