“One of the discoveries of the evening is Kristīne Opolais, in the role of Pauline… She looks forlorn like Monica Vitti in Antonioni’s first films and in addition desperately sadistic… her performance resonates with an intense and feverish acting power, in a perfect match with her soaring vocal line, framing the flow of music.” La Stampa

Kristīne Opolais was born in Latvia in 1979. She studied voice at the Latvian Academy of Music and with Margreet Honig in Amsterdam.

Opolais was a soloist of the Latvian National Opera from 2003 until 2007, where she appeared as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro, Mimi and Musetta in La Bohème, Liù in Turandot, the title heroines in Madama Butterfly and Tosca, Tamara in Rubinstein’s The Demon, as well as in Eugene Onegin and Pique Dame. In 2007 she made her debut as Violetta in La Traviata.

She sang on tour with Latvian National Opera at the Bergen Festival as Freia in Das Rheingold in 2006 and most recently in France as Lisa in Pique Dame.

In 2006 Kristīne Opolais made her debut as Tosca at the Staatsoper unter den Linden in Berlin, which led to a re-invitation in 2007 and, notably, to a new production of Prokofiev’s The Gambler under Daniel Barenboim in 2008. This co-production between Berlin and Milan also marked Opolais’ La Scala debut in June 2008.

In 2007 Opolais made her UK debut with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra at the Manchester Bridgewater Hall. 2008 saw her opera debut in the UK with concert performances of La Bohème with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons.

Successfully combining opera with concert repertoire, Opolais has performed Verdi’s Requiem, Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder, Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder and Mahler’s 4th Symphony. In August 2008 she made her debut with the Copenhagen Opera Orchestra performing the Wesendonck Lieder.

The 2008/2009 season will see, among other engagements, her debuts at the Vienna State Opera in La Bohème, the Opéra de Lyon in the The Gambler and at Teatro Regio in Turin in Pique Dame under Gianandrea Noseda.

In 2009, Opolais made her debut with great success at the Salzburg Festival as soprano in Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14 under Andris Nelsons.  Opolais’ future includes debuts at the Festival in Aix-en-Provence as donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Santa Cecilia in Rome with songs for soprano from Maurice Ravel’s Scheherazade and Gustav Mahler’s Symphony Nr. 4.

The following seasons will see her return to La Scala and Staatsoper Berlin; performances of Madama Butterfly in Japan, debuts at De Nederlandse Opera in Amsterdam with the role of Fevroniya in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevroniya and at the Zurich Opera House with the title role in Janáček’s Jenufa.

Kristīne Opolais won the Paul Sakss Singers’ Award in 2004, the Latvian Annual Theatre Award for Best Opera Artist and the Latvian Cultural Foundation Award in 2005. She was also awarded the Latvian Great Music Award in 2006 for her role as Lisa in Pique Dame, as well as in 2007.