On February 8th the Latvian opera singer will be Elina Garanca (47) shine at the opening of the Opera Ball. But she is already thinking about the end of her career, as she now told the Ö3 “Breakfast with Me”.
“I’ve been thinking about the end of my career for a long time. I’m a realist. Ten to fifteen years is a really great career for a singer, 25 years of career – as long as mine has lasted – is already a super extra and everything that comes after that, “It’s a miracle,” she said.
“I still enjoy it, but my knees hurt. We stand on the sloping stages for a long time during every performance. And I notice that singing the same parts over and over again is less fun for me. And I have so much experience accumulated, I enjoy passing it all on to young people.”
But she would like to sing for a few more years. She already has plans for the time after her singing career. “I have so many things that interest me. For example, we did a big renovation of our house in Malaga in the summer. I chose all the tiles myself, all the curtains – so if singing doesn’t work anymore, maybe I’ll work as an interior designer. Or in Spain, where we live, there are only terrible cakes. I could bake the Latvian cakes there and start a small business.”
Parts of this year’s opera ball opening are dedicated to Ukraine and Garanča also has a clear opinion – especially about her opera colleague Anna Netrebko.
“Anna has distanced herself from the war, not from Putin, for whatever reasons. From my point of view, because she doesn’t live in Russia, but in Vienna and is Austrian. But at the end of the day, it’s her attitude and her moral state which she has to go to sleep every evening. The inner morality is exactly what lets us toss and turn through the night or not,” she said.
“For me, some things are incomprehensible because I come from a small Latvia that was occupied twice, I grew up in the former Soviet Union and I know what goes on there and how you feel as an occupied country. In principle: Singing praises to the people in power in such a situation is unimaginable to me.”