French accolade for Polish contralto

She received the prestigious honour for two of her recent live recordings: a recital of Mussorgsky’s songs (with the pianist Garrick Ohlsson) and a selection of operatic arias (with the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra under Łukasz Borowicz), both released on the Warsaw-based DUX label.

The distinction is yet another mark of international recognition of Ewa Podleś who is universally regarded as the most authentic contralto of her generation.

Since her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1984, she has been in a select group of artists who appear regularly in the most prestigious opera houses and concert halls including La Scala, the Metropolitan, San Francisco Opera, Covent Garden, Théâtre du Châtelet, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Teatro Liceo, Teatro Real, Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Théâtre des Champs Elysées and the National Philharmonic in Warsaw.

Thanks to her distinctive, dramatic voice of staggering range and unique vocal abilities, her extensive opera and concert repertoire spans music from the Baroque to the present.

Ewa Podleś is the winner of many international competitions, including the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Foreign music critics contributing to Classic FM Magazine have included her among ten best mezzos of the first decade of the twenty-first century, while Operaarts.com named her one of 100 operatic legends of the last half-century. (mk/rg/rk)