With her distinctive, dramatic voice of staggering range, agility and amplitude, Ewa Podleś was widely regarded as the world’s foremost contralto. Her engagements included appearances in leading opera houses and concert venues throughout North America and Europe. In addition to her rigorous operatic calendar she was a highly acclaimed recital and concert performer and had performed in the major art-song series of Cleveland, Atlanta, St Paul, Chicago, Paris, Amsterdam, London, Toronto, Moscow, Warsaw, Montreal, San Juan, Québec and New York. Festival invitations included New York’s Bard Festival, Aix-en-Provence, Flanders, Montpellier and Lanaudière.

Her many collaborations with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre included two Deutsche Grammophon recordings, Handel’s Ariodante and Gluck’s Armide, and for Naxos she took the leading rôle in Rossini’s Tancredi (8.660183–84) and recorded a programme of Rossini opera arias (8.553543).