Ewa Podleś

Ewa Maria Podleś (; 26 April 1952 – 19 January 2024) was a Polish coloratura contralto singer who had an active international career both on the opera stage and in recital. She was known for the agility of her voice and a vocal range which spanned more than three octaves. She excelled in Rossini roles such as Rosina in Il barbiere di Siviglia, the title role of La Cenerentola, Isabella in L'italiana in Algeri and the title role of Tancredi. She was able to perform roles that Handel had written for castratos, such as Rinaldo and Giulio Cesare. Podleś appeared on leading stages of the world and made many recordings.

Life and career Ewa Maria Podleś was born in Warsaw on 26 April 1952. She studied at the Warsaw Academy of Music with . repeated at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. She performed the same year at the Aix-en-Provence Festival as Rosina, and as Adalgisa in Bellini's Norma in Vancouver. Her voice had a wide range, spanning more than three octaves, and was called rare in type and beauty. It appears that her lowest note sung on stage is a B♭2 ("Pour une femme de mon nom" at La Scala) and her highest is a D6 ("Sudò il guerriero" from Il Ritorno di Tobia by Haydn). She also performed and gave a lot of recital, notably with her husband, later with the pianist Garrick Ohlsson and Anna Marchwiński.

In 1996, she sang the role of the Marquise de Berkenfeld in Donizetti's La fille du régiment at La Scala in Milan, Her return to the Met took place on 24 September 2008, when she sang the role of La Cieca in Ponchielli's La Gioconda.

Podleś's final performance was in La fille du régiment at Barcelona's Liceu in May 2017. On 1 June, she announced that she was pausing her singing career ahead of an upcoming orthopaedic operation, while continuing to teach and with an intention to return to performing. However, her website listed no further appearances during the remainder of her life.

Ewa Podleś was the subject of a 2015 biography, Ewa Podleś, Contralto Assoluto, written by Brigitte Cormier.

Personal life Podleś and her husband, the pianist , lived in Warsaw. Marchwiński died on 7 November 2023. She took part in the first recording of Krzysztof Penderecki's Te Deum, conducted by the composer. Several recordings earned international awards, such as Airs Célébres a Grand Prix du Disque, Mélodies Russes (Russian songs) a Grand prix de l'Académie française); a recording of Rossini's Tancredi earned the CD Classic's "The Best Buy 1995" award and a nomination for the 1996 Grammy Award. Arias by Rossini won her both the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik and the "Record of the Year" 1996 award of Studio magazine. Mahler's Symphony No. 2 earned her the "Palmarés Nouvelle Académie du Disque". de Falla: El amor brujo with Krzysztof Penderecki Mozart: Requiem with Michel Corboz and L'Ensemble vocal et instrumental de Lausanne Offenbach: Orphée aux enfers as L'Opinion publique Penderecki: Seven Gates of Jerusalem with Kazimierz Kord Penderecki: Te Deum and Lacrimosa Ewa Podleś & Garrick Ohlsson Live Marta Ptaszynska: Concerto for Marimba; Songs of Despair and Loneliness Prokofiev: Alexandr Nevsky with Jean-Claude Casadesus Puccini: Il trittico with Bruno Bartoletti Respighi: Il Tramonto with Rossini Arias for Contralto with Pier Giorgio Morandi Rossini Gala with Wojciech Michniewski Rossini: Tancredi as Tancredi with Alberto Zedda Russian Arias with Constantin Orbelian Russian Melodies (Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff), with Graham Johnson A Treasury of Polish Songs with

DVD Handel: Giulio Cesare in Egitto as Cornelia from Barcelona Opera Donizetti: La fille du régiment as Marquise de Berkenfeld Ponchielli: La Gioconda as La Cieca from Barcelona Opera Rossini: Ciro in Babilonia as Ciro from Pesaro Rossini Opera Festival Massenet: Cendrillon as Madame de la Haltière from Royal Opera Covent Garden Tchaikovsky: The Queen of Spades as the Countess from a 2011 production of the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona