Born in İstanbul, Yekta Kara started her music studies at the İstanbul Municipal Conservatoire Piano Department at the age of five. Following her graduation from the German High School İstanbul in 1970, she went to Germany for higher education and entered Munich State Music Academy Opera-Voice Department. Here, the artist studied singing with Prof. Marianne Schech, lied with Prof. Hermann Reuter and Erik Werba, and opera with Prof Erich Bohner and Richard Holm.
She completed her education as a scholarship student at the DAAD in 1976. Attending to a Master Class with Ernst Haefliger in Zurich in 1973 and starting her five-year studies on opera direction she started the same year with Prof. Günther Rennert, Yekta Kara graduated from the Munich State Music Academy Opera Direction Department in 1978. Meanwhile she graduated from the drama department of İstanbul Municipal Conservatoire and worked as a soloist and a dramaturge at the Ankara State Opera and Ballet in the seasons of 1978-79 and 1979-80.
This period also marks her debut as a director. Giving over 50 recitals and concerts accompanied with orchestras in Turkey, Greece, Germany, Russia and Poland, the artist participated in the 18th and 19th editions of the Moniuszko festival upon the invitation of the Polish state. A soloist, director and the chief dramaturge of the İstanbul State Opera and Ballet since 1980 and currently its chief director, Yekta Kara worked as the manager and general art director of the institution from 1992 until 2000.
With a repertoire of opera productions including Weber's 'Ebu Hasan'; Mozart's 'Abduction from the Seraglio', 'Magic Flute', 'Don Giovanni', 'Cosi fan Tutte', 'Zaide', Puccini's 'La Boheme', 'Madam Butterfly', 'Tosca', 'Turandot'; Rossini's 'Barber of Seville'; Verdi's 'Il Trovatore', 'Othello', 'Aida', 'Nabucco', 'La Traviata'; Giordano's 'Andrea Chenier'; Donizetti's 'Don Pasquale', 'Belisario'; Bizet's 'Carmen', Offenbach's 'The Tales of Hoffmann'; Saint-Säens's 'Samson and Delilah' and the operetta of Fall's 'Die Rose von Stambul', Yekta Kara has worked as a guest director in Germany, USA and Bulgaria alongside her work in Turkey and her latest opera production in Germany (Abduction from the Seraglio) has been presented at the opening of the 2004 European Cultural Festival.
The author of over a hundred essays and articles published in various newspapers and magazines, the artist teaches at the Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts State Conservatoire.
