Aga Mikolaj

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Agnieszka Beata Mikołajczyk (* before 1990 in Kutno , Poland ) is a Polish opera singer ( soprano ).

Life

education

Aga Mikolaj studied from 1990 to 1996 at the Music Academy in Poznan with Antonina Kawecka. During her studies, Aga Mikolaj received a scholarship from the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna . In 1997, Aga Mikolaj took part in master classes from Renata Scotto and in 2001 from Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf , with whom she revised all of her roles until she died in 2006.

Awards at the beginning of her career

At the beginning of her career, Aga Mikolaj won several prizes in international singing competitions:

Career as an opera singer

Aga Mikolaj's artistic career began at the Teatr Wielki in Poznań (1995–2002), where she appeared as Contessa ( Le nozze di Figaro ), Pamina ( The Magic Flute ) and Rachel ( La juive ). In the same season she also made guest appearances at the Teatr Wielki (Warsaw) and at the opera houses in Łódź, Breslau, Luxembourg, Heilbronn and Hanover. She also appears at international opera festivals.

Since September 2002 Aga Mikolaj has been singing in Munich at the Bavarian State Opera Munich , where she took on roles such as Pamina and First Lady in Die Zauberflöte , Donna Elvira ( Don Giovanni ), First Flower Girl ( Parsifal ), Ännchen ( Der Freischütz ), Drusilla ( L ' incoronazione di Poppea ), Gretel ( Hansel and Gretel ), Marzelline ( Fidelio ), Euridice ( Orfeo ed Euridice ), Najade ( Ariadne auf Naxos ), Almirena ( Rinaldo ), Musetta ( La Bohème ) and Countess Almaviva in Figaro's wedding .

Aga Mikolaj is a guest at European opera houses - for example at the Aalto Theater (Pamina, Eva / Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , Contessa / Le Nozze di Figaro ), at the Opéra Bastille in Paris (First Lady), at the Vienna Volksoper (Micaela / Carmen ) , at the National Theater Prague (Donna Elvira), Deutsche Oper Berlin , at the Graz Opera House and at the National Theater Mannheim. In 2004 Aga Mikolaj toured Japan with the Vienna State Opera , under the baton of Seiji Ozawa ( Don Giovanni ). Engagements in the US and Canada led to performances in Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Providence and Montreal. In 2006 Aga Mikolaj made her concert debut in New York at the Avery Fisher Hall of the Lincoln Center. Her Glyndebourne Opera Festival debut as Fiordiligi took place during a tour in autumn 2006.

In the 2008/2009 season Aga Mikolaj sang the role of Donna Elvira ( Don Giovanni ) at the Monte Carlo Opera House, in Wiesbaden ( Hessisches Staatstheater ), in Tokyo ( New National Theater Tokyo ), in Berlin ( Berliner Staatsoper Unter den Linden ) and at Guest performance of the Vienna State Opera at the Spring Festival in Budapest.

Relationship with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Aga Mikolaj not only took part in Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's master classes, but was also her private student from 2001 to 2006. Because of the great talent of Aga Mikolaj, a respectful friendship developed between the diva and her student. In 2006 - shortly before her death - Elisabeth Schwarzkopf confirmed Aga Mikolaj in writing that she possessed “one of the most beautiful soprano voices of our time” and that she was “a worthy successor in your generation”.

Concert repertoire

As a concert singer, Aga Mikolaj has a broad repertoire that includes major works from Bach to Penderecki . The most recent highlights of these activities were concerts with Gustav Mahler's 4th Symphony, Beethoven's Egmont with Kent Nagano , Penderecki's The Seven Gates of Jerusalem in Valencia (Spain) and Warsaw, and the Te Deum at the festivals in Colmar and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. She has also appeared in such diverse works at the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, ​​the Muziekcentrum Utrecht Vredenburg and the Gran Canaria Symphony Orchestra Hall in Las Palmas.

The conductors Aga Mikolaj has worked with include Marco Armiliato, Philippe Auguin , Harry Bicket, Ivor Bolton , Jacques Delacôte, Gustavo Dudamel , Ádám Fischer , Michael Hofstetter , Philippe Jordan , Jiri Kout, Zubin Mehta , Kent Nagano , Cornelius Meister , Seiji Ozawa, Krzysztof Penderecki, Peter Schneider , Stefan Soltesz , Karl Sollak , Christoph Spering , David Stahl and Antoni Wit .

Discography

Aga Mikolaj can be heard on the Naxos CD "The Seven Gates of Jerusalem", which was nominated for the 2008 Grammy Awards .

More publishments:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Aga Mikolaj at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich: Archived copy ( memento of the original from February 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.bayerische.staatsoper.de
  2. ↑ Interview for the WDR by Kirsten Liese: "A portrait of Aga Mikolaj" (web link no longer available)
  3. ↑ Elisabeth Schwarzkopf on Aga Mikolaj: Archive link ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Zubin Mehta on Aga Mikolaj: Archive link ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
personal data
SURNAME Mikolaj, Aga
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mikołajczyk, Agnieszka Beata
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish opera singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH before 1990
PLACE OF BIRTH Kutno , Poland