Polish contralto Ewa Podles passed away on Friday January 19. She was 71 years old. Born on April 26, 1952 in Warsaw, Ewa Podles came from a musical family. Introduced to singing by her chorister mother, she then enrolled at the Frédéric Chopin Academy in Warsaw, in Alina Bolechowska’s class. She was Ewa Podles’s one and only teacher, as Podles preferred to perfect her skills alone.
In 1975, she made her debut at the Warsaw Opera as Rosina in Rossini’s Barber of Seville. She has sung at the Metropolitan Opera,
La Scala in Milan, at Covent Garden, in Paris, Vienna and Barcelona….
After a final performance of La fille du régiment at Barcelona’s Liceu in 2017, Ewa Podles announced her retirement from the stage due to health problems. However, she did not give up her teaching activities.
