THE SONGBIRD: Lativan soprano Inga Kalna was born in Riga in 1972. She studied voice there and at the Royal Academy of Music in London, followed by her debut as Pamina. As a principal at the Latvian National Opera in the 1990s, early roles included Gilda, Lucia, and Mimi. In 2001, Kalna joined the roster in Hamburg taking on roles that included Adina, Gilda, Lucia, Violetta, Xenia, and the four heroines in "Tales of Hoffmann." Her Alcina was heard in Vienna, Paris, and Moscow, and was her debut role at La Scala in 2009. Kalna has sung a large swath of lyric, dramatic, and florid roles in cities including Amsterdam, Aix-en-Provence, Berlin, Dresden, Innsbruck, Lausanne, Toulouse, and at the Salzburg Festival.

THE MUSIC: I'm posting various singers doing the arias for the two leading soprano roles in "Alcina" -- this is Alcina's fifth of six arias.

"Alcina" was composed for Handel's first season at Covent Garden in London and premiered in 1735. The opera soon fell into obscurity and was not performed again until a production in Leipzig in 1928, followed by occasional revivals and recordings that have since grown the opera's reputation; today it is one of Handel's most popular and widely produced. It's one of his "magic" operas with sorcery and spells woven throughout the plot. Alcina and Morgana are sisters and both sorceresses who fall in love with mortals who trick them. Alcina may be Handel's greatest soprano role. In Act Three, Alcina's spell over her lover Ruggiero has been broken and he is now fleeing her enchanted island with his wife (who rescued him while disguised as her own brother!). Alcina confronts him one last time, begging him to stay. When he refuses, she sings this torrid aria, "Ma quando tornerai."

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