Polish contralto will preview her Alice Tully Hall recital on campus

Podles

"The Polish-born Ewa Podles," reports The New York Times, "has caused even sober connoisseurs of the voice to rhapsodize." Possessed of a voice of staggering technical facility and wide range, Podles' artistry resists all categorization except the one bestowed on her by The Boston Globe: "Her voice is a throwback to the Golden Age."

In a preview of a recital she will give at New York's Alice Tully Hall later in October, Ewa Podles (AY-vah PODE-lesh) will perform in Cornell's Statler Auditorium Monday, Oct. 5, at 8 p.m. Podles' husband, pianist Jerzy Marchwinsky, will accompany her in a program of songs by Chopin, Mussorgsky (the harrowing "Songs and Dances of Death"), Rachmaninoff, Lutoslawski and Kartowicz.

Tickets for the concert -- at $24, $19 and $14.50 for the general public and $14.50, $11.50 and $8.50 for students -- are now on sale at the Lincoln Hall Box Office, 105 Lincoln Hall; telephone: 255-5144. The Lincoln Hall Ticket Office is open for telephone sales Monday through Friday between 9:45 a.m. and 1:45 p.m.; the ticket office is open for walk-up sales 10 a.m.-1 p.m. Tickets also may be ordered via the Cornell Concert Series web site at http://www.arts.cornell.edu/ccs.

An especially renowned interpreter of Russian song and the breathtakingly florid music of Handel and Rossini, Podles is making an extensive recital tour of 10 North American cities, during which she will open the "Art of the Song" series at New York's Alice Tully Hall on Oct. 18 and make her long-awaited Carnegie Hall debut in an all-Rossini program with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra.

"The color [of Podles' voice] is the deep port wine of the true contralto," said The Boston Globe's Richard Dyer, "and Podles keeps that color over the full three-octave range of her voice. When it comes to virtuoso coloratura technique, Podles is comparable to Marilyn Horne and, therefore, superior to all the current competition."

A prolific recording artist, Podles' recent issues include Handel's Ariodante for Deutsche Grammophon (winner of the Diapason d'Or), an all-Rossini disc (awarded the 1996 Preis der Deutschen Schallplatten Kritik) and Mélodies Russes (winner of the Grand Prix du Disque).