MERLE JALAKAS

Merle Jalakas graduated from the singing class of docent Ljudmilla Issakova at the Estonian Academy of Music in 1996. Since 1995 she has been an opera and operetta soloist in the Vanemuine. She has also studied under A. Kapustjanski, L. Buglisi and T. Valjakka. In addition, Jalakas has taken part in the master classes of Professor E. Märtson-Wilson, M. Pelo and Professor I. Kremling.

Her roles have included: Lucia and Gianetta (Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor and The Elixir of Love), Atalanta (Handel’s Xerxes), Musetta (Puccini’s La Bohème), Oscar and Nannetta (Verdi’s A Masked Ball and Falstaff), Leonore (Nielsen’s Masquerade), Papagena (Mozart`s The Magic Flute), Gretchen (Lortzing’s The Poacher), Gretel (Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel), Polynesia (Lusens’ Dr Doolittle and the Birds’ Opera), Violetta and Marietta (Kalman’s The Violets from Montmartre and The Bayadere), Ciboletta and Adele (Strauss’s A Night in Venice and The Bat), Riquette (Abraham’s Victoria and her Hussar), Simone (Schwartz’s The Baker’s Wife), Jane (Frimli-Stothart’s Rose-Marie), Marie (Anton’s Saturnin’s Game), Rosina and Fanny (Rossini’s The Barber of Seville and The Bill of Marriage), Lisa (Kálmán’s Countess Mariza), Woman in White (in the dance production Wolfgang Amade Mozart based on the music of Mozart, Haydn and Pärt), and Fairy (Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s ballet A Midsummer Night’s Dream).

She has also performed solo parts in many major works: Mozart’s Grosse Messe C Minor, Spatzenmesse C major and Ave verum corpus, Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Bach’s The Coffee Cantata and Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater.