Inga Kalna, born in Riga, studied singing and musicology at the Latvian Music Academy. After her first engagements with the Latvian National Opera she continued her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Inga Kalna has won the Latvian Theatre Award twice and she is one of the very few singers who was awarded the Great Music Award of Latvia five times. In the United Kingdom she received the Goldberg Operatic Prize and the Bruce Millar Memorial Trust Award.

In 1999 the soprano joined the Hamburgische Staatsoper where she still regularly appears as guest. Further engagements brought Inga Kalna to the Netherlands Opera Amsterdam, Vlaamse Opera, Belgium, Tampere/Finland, Opéra de Lausanne and Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, Bolshoi Moscow and the Salzburg Festival.

Her parade role is Alcina, with which Inga Kalna debuted at the Opéra National de Paris, Teatro alla Scala, and the Wiener Staatsoper.

Remarkable is Inga Kalna’s cooperation with two conductors: Marc Minkowski under whose baton she sang Alcina (Staatsoper Wien), Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Desinganno (Staatsoper Berlin), Lucio Silla (Salzburg) and René Jacobs who repeatedly invited her to the Dresdner Musikfestspiele. Innsbrucker Festwochen, Staatsoper Berlin and Festival Aix-en-Provence. 

Important roles in Inga Kalna’s extensive opera repertoire are Donna Anna (Don Giovanni), Desdemona (Otello), Elettra (Idomeneo), Violetta (La Traviata), Donna Fiorilla in Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia, and the title roles in Maria Stuarda, Alcina and Agrippina, Lucio Cinna (Lucio Silla) which she performed at the Salzburg Festival, La Scala, Teatro del Liceu Barcelona, Teatro Real Madrid, Toronto and the Staatsoper Berlin.

In 2018 she sings Piacere (Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Desinganno) with Emmanuelle Haïm in Stockholm and  Vitellia (La Clemenza di Tito) under direction of Marc Minkowki at Prague National Theatre, and Romilda in Serse in a European tour with il Pomo d’Oro. At Riga Opera House she will sing Elvira (Ernani) and Norma.

Apart from her opera activities Inga Kalna is also highly in demand as Lied interpreter and concert singer. She has worked with conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Ingo Metzmacher, Andrea Marcon, Stefan Soltesz, Gerd Albrecht, Marc Soustrot, Simone Young.

CD-recordings include Rinaldo (Harmonia Mundi/René Jacobs), Vivaldi’s Motezuma (DGG/Archiv, conductor Alan Curtis), Mathis der Maler (Oehms Classics, conductor Simone Young) and Händel’s Serse (Deutsche Grammophon/Maxim Emelyanychev).

2018