Prof. Krisztina Laki, born in Hungary, received her training with József Réti in Budapest. Her first engagements took her to Bern and to the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf, where she was already able to enthuse with much acclaimed successes as a lyric coloratura soprano (first subject,) in the roles of Gilda, Sophie, Norina and not least as the Queen of the Night, Blondchen, Susanne and Zerlina. This was followed by guest appearances at La Scala in Milan under the direction of Giorgio Strehler as Blondchen and a guest contract with the Cologne Opera from 1980 to 1989. Krisztina Laki’s many years of collaboration there with Sir John Pritchard, Marek Janowski, Michael Hampe, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Placido Domingo, Kiri Te Kanawa and Ruggero Raimondi, among others, provided her with a truly ideal breeding ground for her further artistic development. In addition to her previously acclaimed roles, she now also embodied Carolina in Cimarosa’s “Il matrimonio segreto”, Verdi’s Oscar, Adele, Marzelline and her Sophie was joined by Zdenka from Arabella.
Further guest appearances took her to numerous important venues, such as the opera houses of Hamburg, Berlin, Munich, Paris, Vienna, Bonn, Barcelona, Hong Kong, but also to the Glyndebourne Opera Festival and Salzburg.
She was a welcome guest all over the world and under the direction of outstanding conductors such as Wolfgang Sawallisch, Jeffrey Tate, Nikolaus Harnoncourt or Bernhard Haitink she reaped great success. Directors such as Otto Schenk and Juri Ljubimov were equally formative for her as was the joint work with colleagues such as James King, Theo Adam, Hermann Prey, Gundula Janowitz or Brigitte Fassbaender.
Of particular note is her guest contract at the Staatstheater Stuttgart from 1986 to 1991, where, among other roles, her interpretation of Lady Harriet in Flotow’s “Martha”, directed by Loriot, was celebrated.
In addition to over 40 opera premieres, Krisztina Laki was also in demand as a concert singer. Her repertoire ranged from Bach to Mozart, Haydn, Mendelssohn and Mahler to Britten – to name just a few composers. Thanks not least to the inspiring support of the most important orchestras, led by conductors such as Carlo Maria Guilini, Helmut Rilling and Sir Neville Marriner, she has achieved great renown as a concert performer in many major cities in Europe and throughout the world. Numerous recitals also bear witness to her great experience in the field of chamber music.
In addition, she has made more than 50 recordings with renowned conductors. Her interpretations of unknown masterpieces by Salieri and other composers of the Classical and Romantic periods have also attracted great attention.
In 2001 Krisztina Laki stopped her active opera, concert and song singing activities. From then on, she dedicated herself to passing on her knowledge and experience in singing in highly acclaimed international master classes, as a jury member of important international music competitions, in workshops and presentations at singing teacher congresses, as an expert at concert diploma examinations and soloist diploma examinations, and at various colleges and universities of applied sciences as a professor/lecturer of the next generation of singing artists. She was a lecturer at the Richard Strauss Conservatory and at the Munich University of Applied Sciences, for over ten years at the Vienna Master Classes and is a professor at the Bremen University of the Arts together with Prof. Thomas Mohr. Her master classes have taken her to Germany, Austria, Hungary, Switzerland, Italy and Spain, as well as to Japan. Since the summer semester of 2022, she has been a lecturer in voice at the Anton Rubinstein International Music Academy in Düsseldorf.