Inese Galante (born 12 March 1954) is a Latvian soprano opera singer. Galante is known for a great beauty of tone, nuanced pianissimos and sensitive command of dynamics and colour. Her performance of Vavilov's Ave Maria (often attributed to Giulio Caccini), from her "Debut" album 1995 started spreading worldwide interest in the piece.
Career
Galante was born in Riga to a musical family. She entered the Latvian Academy of Music in Riga in 1977. While still a student at the Academy, she became a soloist of the Latvian National Opera. Parallel to her work in Riga she was engaged in opera productions at other theatres, particularly at the Kirov Opera (Mariinsky theatre) in Saint Petersburg, Russia where she had a fruitful collaboration with conductor Valery Gergiev.
From 1991 until 1999, Galante was soloist at National Theatre Mannheim and Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf. Since then she has been touring and performing all over the world. Galante's voice has been heard at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and the Festival de Radio France et Montpellier (France), at the St Denis Festival, the Newport Music Festival and the Gibson Hall (USA), at the Barbican Centre, the Royal Albert Hall, the Wigmore Hall and Kensington Palace (London), at the Royal Swedish Opera, and at the Kremlin and the Bolshoi Theatre (Moscow), where she made her debut as Adriana in Cilea's opera Adriana Lecouvreur in the La Scala production. In 2001 Galante appeared in concert in Rotterdam together with José Carreras.
Podcasts:
ACT 1
by: Carousel SoundtrackFreed from labor, mill girls joyously meet their boy friends at an amusement
park (Prologue: Carousel Waltz).Among them are the effervescent Carrie and
the moody Julie, who infuriates Mrs. Mullin, the carousel owner, by arousing
the interest of her barker (and lover, we infer), Billy. In the ensuing quarrel,
Billy is fired.
Carrie thinks Julie is attracted to Billy (You're a Queer One, Julie Jordan)
and fittingly chooses this as the moment to reveal that she, too, has a beau
(Mister Snow).
Billy returns, chases Carrie off, and romances Julie (If I Loved You).
Two months later, Julie and Billy are married and living with Julie's cousin
Nettie. Preparing for that evening's clambake, the girls and boys indulge in
a bit of gender scuffling, then, with Nettie presiding, celebrate the erotic
liberation of spring (Give It To 'Em Good, Carrie.../June Is Bustin' Out All Over.)
Julie confides toCarrie he marital problems: Billy is out of work and angry.
He has even hit Julie. Carrie's news is happier - Mister Snow and she are
engaged. The eavesdropping girls are thrilled, not least when Snow himself
shows up (Mister Snow reprise). Snow and Carrie look foward to married life:
a big family and a thriving business in canned sardines (When The Children
Are Asleep).
Whalers on the shore leave pile into a waterfront dive (Blow High, Blow Low)
and get into a brawl. One whaler, the infinitely sleazy Jigger, tries to
interest Billy in robbery, which they can pull off during the clambake.
Billy is leery - but then Julie tells him she is pregnant.
Overjoyed at the thought of fatherhood as he walks along the beach
(Soliloquy), Billy decides to turn thief with Jigger after all.
Nettie, Billy and Julie, Carrie and Mister Snow, Jigger and the rest of the
Gang sail off to the clambake.