MARBECKS COLLECTABLE: Magdalena Kozena - Le Belle Immagini

"Poised between soprano and mezzo, Magdalena Kozena's richly coloured voice combines fullness and warmth with the bloom and freshness of youth. Add to this a perfect technique - seamless legato, dazzling coloratura, smooth negotiation of wide intervals…a delectable disc."
- ***** Five Stars BBC Music Magazine (Mar 2002)

"With good support from orchestra and conductor this is a disc which should be bought even by those who resist hype on principle."
- MusicWeb Feb 2005

The Czech mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kozená was born in Brno in 1973. She gathered her first music and singing experience with the Children's Chorus of Brno. From 1987-1991 she studied singing with Neva Megová and piano with Jirí Pesa at the Brno Conservatoire.

In 1991 she became a student of the College of Performing Arts of Bratislava, where she continued her singing studies with Eva Blahová until 1995, the year of her graduation. In the course of her studies she received several awards at international competitions including the 6th International W.A. Mozart Competition in Salzburg in 1995.

There followed tours of Japan and the USA. Following guest appearances at the Opera House in Brno, Magdalena Kozená was a guest soloist in the 1996/1997 season at the Wiener Volksoper where she sang the role of Annius in Mozart's opera La clemenza di Tito, returning there in 1998 to sing the role of Hermine in Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream. In 1998 Kozená sang the role of Paris at the Royal Baroque Theater in Drottningholm, Sweden in Gluck's opera Paris et Helène. She made her debut at the Chatelet, Paris in the title role of Gluck's Orphée with John Eliot Gardiner.

Recent engagements have included performances of Mahler's 4th Symphony with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in Prague under the baton of Libor Pesek, Paride in Gluck's Paride ed Elena for the Drottningholm Festival, Idamantes (under Marc Minkowski) for the Flanders Opera, a solo recital at the Rudolfinum, Prague with Graham Johnson and her debut at the 1999 Aix-en-Provence Festival in L'Incoronazione di Poppea with Marc Minkowski. This year she will make her debuts in North America at the Festival de Lanaudiere, at the BBC Proms (Bach with John Eliot Gardiner) and at the Leipzig Opera (as Mélisande). She will return to the Aix-en-Provence Festival as Cherubino.