Hrvatski

Kos, Lana | soprano

Date created: 16.02.2015.
  • More
  • Performance

Lana Kos was born in 1984 in Varaždin, Croatia. She studied singing at the Zagreb Academy of Music. At the age of seventeen, she made her debut as Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute at the Croatian National Theatre of Zagreb. Due to specific colour of her voice, three octave range and lightness and confidence of her performance, her great singing potential became evident right away. It was also recognised by the great Mstislav Rostropovich, who engaged her for the role of Natasha Rostova in Sergei Prokofiev’s War and Peace at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow.

She further developed her vocal abilities with the renowned vocal teacher Lyudmila Ivanova.

In 2006 she became the youngest soloist in the history of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, where she interpreted a number of roles over the course of four years, working with some of the world’s most renowned conductors such as Kent Nagano, Marco Armiliato, Nicola Luisotti, Julian Kovatchev, Fabio Luisi, Kirill Petrenko, Daniele Gatti and many others.

Her collaboration with the Slovene National Theatre of Maribor began the following year; there she made her debut in the role of Violetta Valéry in Verdi’s La traviata and interpreted major roles as lead soloist: Mimì in La bohème, conducted by Marko Letonja and directed by Janusz Kica, and Juliette in Roméo et Juliette.

In 2011 she won the Croatian Theatre Award in the category of Outstanding Achievement of Young Artists Under Age 30 for the title role in Donizetti’s opera Lucía di Lammermoor, (conductor: Nikša Bareza, director: Damir Zlatar Frey) at the Croatian National Theatre Ivan Zajc in Rijeka. 

Her international career further advanced in 2011, when she sang Violetta Valéry at the Arena di Verona Festival, conducted by Carlo Rizzi and directed by the renowned Argentinian director Hugo de Ana, with whom she collaborated during her debut in the same opera in Maribor.

In 2012 she interpreted the role of Violetta at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo in a production of La traviata conducted by Bruno Bartoletti and directed by Henning Brockhaus. The same year she sang Micaëla at the Israeli Opera Festival at Masada, conducted by Daniel Oren and directed by Giancarlo del Monaco, and Manon in Manon Lescaut by Giacomo Puccini at the Greek National Opera in Athens.

In the following years, Lana Kos had a series of successful performances on international stages, including the roles of Desdemona at the NCPA Opera Beijing in 2013 and Verdi’s Violetta in Tel Aviv, in a production directed by Andrei Žagars and conducted by David Stern. She repeated her role of Violetta in La traviata at the Arena di Verona, directed by Hugo de Ana and conducted by Andrea Battistoni, and interpreted the same role in Guangzhou, China, in a Covent Garden production conducted by Daniel Oren.

In 2014 she made her debut in the title role of Giuseppe Verdi’s Luisa Miller in Lausanne. Her interpretation of Desdemona at the Teatro Massimo in Palermo in a production conducted by Renato Palumbo was also successful, as well as her interpretation of Micaëla in São Paulo, Brazil and Giulietta at the Arena di Verona alongside tenor Vittorio Grigolo.

The same year she sang alongside Željko Lučić at the Closing Ceremony of the 65th Dubrovnik Summer Festival, while the following year she repeated her roles of Desdemona in São Paulo and Violetta at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm.

She sang the roles of Rosina in Gioachino Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at the Avenches Festival, Musetta in Giacomo Puccini’s La bohème in Palermo and Mimì in the same opera at Opera Naples in Florida. She sang Donna Anna in Mozart’s Don Giovanni in Beijing. In 2016 she interpreted Elvira in Verdi’s Ernani at the Croatian National Theatre of Split, conducted by Ivo Lipanović and directed by Giancarlo del Monaco. This role brought her Croatian Theatre Award for Best Artistic Achievement in Opera.

The same year she repeated the role of Verdi’s Luisa Miller alongside the famous baritone Leo Nucci under the baton of maestro James Conlon. She also sang Mimì in La bohème at the Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi in Trieste and Verdi’s Violetta at the Teatro Lirico in Cagliari. In 2017 Lana Kos made her debut in two roles - as Marguerite in Faust by Charles Gounod at the Vilnius City Opera and as Liù in Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot at the thirtieth-anniversary edition of the Macao International Music Festival. The following year she debuted as Leonora in Verdi’s Il trovatore at the Seoul Arts Centre. That season she sang Leonora more than fifteen times at the Graz Opera. During 2018 she appeared in Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb and repeated her role as Violetta at the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari and Carlo Felice Theatre in Genoa. The same year, she appeared in Il trovatore in Bern. She sang Musetta in La bohème and Liù in Turandot at the Puccini Festival in Torre del Lago. She repeated the role at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in Finland. Last year she sang Mimì in La bohème at San Carlo Theatre in Naples and Juliette in Gounod’s  Roméo et Juliette in Düsseldorf. Her interpretations of Violetta Valéry in La traviata and Micaëla in Bizet’s Carmen in Arena di Verona were another great success. She made guest appearances in Giuseppe Verdi’s Requiem in Denmark and as Violetta at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm, and recently she made her debut as Cio Cio San in Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in Bern. In 2020 Lana Kos will be interpreting the roles of Alice in Verdi’s Falstaff at the Petruzzelli Theatre in Bari, Violetta Valéry at the Teatro Real in Madrid and she will make her debut in the title role of Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma in Bern.