Natalia Kawałek

Natalia Kawałek

mezzosoprano

In 2010 she graduated at the Frederic Chopin University of Music in Warsaw with Professor Izabella Kłosinska. She studied also in Rome at Conservatorio di Santa Cecilia (with Rebecca Berg and Sara Mingardo) as part of the Erasmus exchange programme. After that she continued her studies at the University of Music in Vienna under Professor Claudia Visca. In 2012 she won 3rd price and the Audience Price at the International Baroque Opera Competition Pietro Antonio Cesti in Innsbruck (Austria). She is also the winner of 2nd price and many special awards at Internationaler Hilde Zadek Gesangswettbewerb 2013 in Vienna and winner of special Gottlob Frick Gesellschaft prize at the International DEBUT Vocal Competition in Germany (2016).
Her repertoire is very wide, from the music of late renaissance, through baroque operas and chamber music, to contemporary and experimental projects. Her greatest passion however is opera. In the years 2014-2016 she was member of Junges Ensemble at Theater an der Wien and since then regularily appears in Theater an der Wien (last season as Fatime in C. M. von Weber’s Oberon and Hermia in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream). In the summer of 2016 she made her debut in Glyndenbourne singing Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro of Mozart. In 2016 she sang in Theater an der Wien in Verdi’s Macbeth, next to Placido Domingo in the title role. In 2017 she sang in Teatr Wielki in Warsaw being part of the Korngold Die Tote Stadt opera production as Lucienne staged by M. Treliński. Other significant stage appearances were the role of Halka in Moniuszko's opera of the same title (Koominnen Opera Helsinki and Festival Opera Rara in Krakow), Dido in H. Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at Alte Musik Festival in Innsbruck in 2013 and her debut as Duxieme Grecque in Theater an der Wien in the production of L’Iphigenie en Aulide of W. Gluck under Alessandro de Marchi with Wiener Symphoniker. She had pleasure to create numerous successful roles in Wiener Kammeroper: title role in Carmen of G. Bizet, Concepcion in L’heure espagnole of M. Ravel, Tisbe in La cenerentola of G. Rossini, Annio in La Clemenza di Tito of W. A. Mozart, Olga in Eugen Oniegin of P. I. Tschaikovsky, Armida in Rinaldo of G. F. Haendel, Roccolina in Gli Uccellatori of. L.F. Gassman. Very important point in her career was marked by a Silvester gala concert in 2015 called 3 mezzi in Theater an der Wien in Vienna where she could have sung as one of the title mezzo next to Anne Sophie von Otter and Angelika Kirschlager. In 2016 she debuted in Theater Bolshoy in Moscow singing Armida in the staged version of Rinaldo by G. F. Haendel witch Bach Consort enslemble under Ruben Dubrovski.
Natalia participated in many musical festivals such as Haendelfestspiele Halle, Oude Musik Festival in Utrecht (Netherlands), Bach Festiwal in Swidnica (Poland), Muzyka na Szczytach festival in Zakopane (Poland), Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival in Germany, Festival of Musical Tradition and Avant-garde KODY in Lublin (Poland) and Festival of Contemporary Vocal Music Gebofon in Warsaw. She collaborated with several famous baroque ensembles like Il Complesso Barocco (under Alan Curtis), Capella Cracoviensis (under Jan Tomasz Adamus, Paul Goodwin and Andreas Spering) or Ensemble Matheus under J. Ch. Spinosi. She participated in masterclasses of many important musicians and professors such as Christa Ludwig, Ileana Cotrubas, Stefano Patarino, Ryszard Karczykowski, Anne Liis-Pool and Jerzy Marchwinski. Natalia is soloist of European baroque ensemble Il Giardino d’Amore, she made her Carnegie Hall debut with this ensemble in October 2014 and she recorded several CD's under the label EVOE records (latest one called Enemies in love with selection of G. F. Haendel arias and duets together with the countertenor Jakub Jozef Orlinski).