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Edita Gruberová (picture from 2013): In 1970 she sang for the first time at the Vienna State Opera in Mozart's »Magic Flute«
Photo:
Uli Deck / dpa
The Slovak soprano Edita Gruberová is dead. She died on Monday at the age of 74 in Zurich, as her family announced via the Munich agency Hilbert Artists Management.
Gruberová ended her career in 2019.
Before that she was on the opera stage for more than 50 years.
She was a Bavarian and Austrian chamber singer.
Gruberová was born in Bratislava in 1946.
She grew up in simple circumstances and sang in the school and radio children's choir.
From 1961 to 1968 she studied at the Conservatory in Bratislava and in 1969 fled to Vienna with her mother.
Then things went up steeply: in 1970 she sang the role of Queen of the Night for the first time at the Vienna State Opera in Mozart's Magic Flute.
Her international breakthrough came in 1976 with the role of Zerbinetta in "Ariadne auf Naxos" by Richard Strauss.
She also performed in New York, Paris, Milan and many other cities.
"A painful loss for art"
The opera diva was also welcome at the Bavarian State Opera.
It was with great sadness that he learned of the death of the incomparable Edita Gruberová, said the Munich opera director Serge Dorny.
»Here at the house we had the privilege of witnessing and celebrating their great roles and their successes.
A painful loss for all of us, a painful loss for art. "
Gruberová also celebrated her departure from the opera stage in Munich in March 2019, with a performance as Queen Elisabetta in Gaetano Donizetti's lyrical tragedy "Roberto Devereux" - and almost an hour of applause.
"It was wonderful and it was enough," she had said when she left.
"It's like leaving a really big family."
ngo / dpa
