Agnes Baltsa

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Agnes Baltsa and Luis Lima in Cavalleria rusticana

Agnes Baltsa ( Greek Αγνή Μπάλτσα , born November 19, 1944 in Lefkas ) is a Greek opera singer ( mezzo-soprano ).

Life

Agnes Baltsa had piano lessons since she was six. In 1958 she moved to Athens with her parents , where she graduated from the Athens Conservatory in 1965 . In the same year she won the Maria Callas scholarship , which gave her the opportunity to continue her studies in Munich . She made her debut in 1968 with the role of Cherubino in Mozart's opera Le nozze di Figaro at the Frankfurt Opera , followed by the role of Octavian in the Strauss opera Der Rosenkavalier at the Vienna State Opera in 1970. She was thus the youngest singer of Octavian the Vienna State Opera. She later sang this role at the Salzburg Festival under Herbert von Karajan , who discovered it during an audition for a recording of the Missa solemnis by Ludwig van Beethoven and shaped it in a special way. Under his direction, she appeared regularly at the Salzburg Festival and Easter Festival . B. as Herodias in Salome , as Carmen or most recently as Princess Eboli in Don Carlos (1986).

This was followed by engagements at the Deutsche Oper Berlin , various opera houses in the USA , including the Metropolitan Opera in New York , the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the Covent Garden in London , the Zurich Opera House and the Opéra de Paris . In 1980 she became a chamber singer at the Vienna State Opera .

In 1985 she sang Elisabetta in Donizetti's Maria Stuarda with Edita Gruberová under the direction of Ádám Fischer as an Austrian premiere. In 1988 Agnes Baltsa was made an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera . At the opening of the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona , Baltsa sang the Olympic hymn Hellenism composed by Mikis Theodorakis for the invasion of the Olympic flag .

At the opening of the Greek National Opera in the new Stavros Niarchos Foundation cultural center on October 15, 2017, Agnes Baltsa triumphed as Klytämnestra in the opera Elektra by Richard Strauss under the direction of Vassilis Christopoulos and directed by Yannis Kokkos .

Baltsa is married to bass Günter Missenhardt .

repertoire

In the 2000/2001 season she appeared as a composer in Ariadne auf Naxos as part of the Japan guest performance of the Vienna State Opera . In 2001 she sang her first Kundry in Parsifal at the Teatro Real in Madrid . In 2002 she took on the engagement of the Vienna State Opera again.

One of her role portraits is Isabella in Gioachino Rossini's L'italiana in Algeri , which she sang in 1987 at the Vienna State Opera under the direction of Jean-Pierre Ponnelle and the musical direction of Claudio Abbado . She herself once said that the three defining roles of her career were Eboli, Carmen and the sexton in Jenůfa by Leoš Janáček . They are certainly the psychologically deepest role portraits of their development. In the meantime, she has cast off the trouser roles .

Apart from the classical opera repertoire, Agnes Baltsa also made a name for herself as an interpreter of Greek folklore, u. a. of works by the composers Mikis Theodorakis and Manos Hadjidakis .

In 1992 an ORF thriller was created under the title Duett . At the side of Otto Schenk and Karlheinz Hackl , Baltsa plays a Hungarian singer who is blackmailed because of former secret service activities.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Baltsa, Agnes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mπάλτσα, Aγνή (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek opera singer (mezzo-soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH November 19, 1944
PLACE OF BIRTH on Lefkas