Inga Kalna

Inga Kalna was born in Riga and studied singing and musicology at the Latvian Music Academy. Following initial engagements at the Latvian National Opera, she continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Inga Kalna won the Latvian Theatre Award twice and is one of very few singers to be awarded the Great Music Award of Latvia on five occasions. She has also received the Goldberg Operatic Prize and the Bruce Millar Memorial Trust Award in the UK.

In 1999 the soprano joined the international opera studio of the Hamburg State Opera, where she became an ensemble member two years later and has appeared regularly as a guest since 2007. Other engagements include the Dutch National Opera in Amsterdam, the Flemish Opera, the Tampere Opera, the Opéra de Lausanne and the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, as well as the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, the Liceu in Barcelona, the Teatro Real in Madrid, the Canadian Opera Company, the Berlin State Opera and the Salzburg Festival.

Inga Kalna made her debut at the Paris Opéra in the title role in Alcina in December 2007, followed by her debut at La Scala, Milan in the same role in March 2009. She works regularly with Marc Minkowski, including projects such as Alcina at the Vienna State Opera, Il trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno at the Berlin State Opera and Lucio Silla at the Mozartwoche Festival in Salzburg, and with René Jacobs, including appearances at the Dresden Music Festival, the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, the Berlin State Opera and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.

Her extensive repertoire also includes roles such as Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Desdemona (Verdi’s Otello), Elettra (Idomeneo), Violetta (La traviata), Donna Fiorilla (Il turco in Italia) and the title roles in Maria Stuarda and Agrippina.

As well as her operatic activities, Inga Kalna appears regularly in recital and with leading orchestras, working with conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Ingo Metzmacher, Andrea Marcon, Stefan Soltész, Marc Soustrot and Simone Young.

Her recordings include Rinaldo with René Jacobs, Vivaldi’s Motezuma with Alan Curtis, Mathis der Maler with Simone Young and Handel’s Serse with Maxim Emelyanychev.