1946-2021: Edita Gruberova dies

For many decades, Gruberova has been at home in the most important opera houses in the world. Her exceptional voice has repeatedly motivated directors to include rarely-performing operas in challenging singing roles in their shows, especially for them. As the “Queen of Coloratura”, Gruberova gained the audience’s innovations.

Gruberova was born on December 23, 1946 in Bratislava, brought up in a simple family. At the insistence of the priest, the music-loving young woman applied to the Bratislava Conservatory and studied there from 1961 to 1968. After that, things went up sharply. She made her debut at the Vienna Opera in 1970 in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” as the Queen of the Night. In 1974 she performed the same role for the first time in the Bavarian State Opera.

“Diva Belcanto for Singing”

In a very short time, she became one of the most sought-after translators for the roles of Zerbeneta, Constanze, Donna Anna, Rosina, Gilda, Violetta and Lucia, which she performed on such stages as La Scala in Milan, London Covent Garden, Metropolitan Opera of New York and Grand Opera of Paris and performed in Opera houses in Berlin, Munich, Geneva, Zurich, Florence, Madrid and Barcelona.

The Austrian and Bavarian chamber singer has won many titles during her theatrical career: “Queen of Colors” for example and “Diva Belle Canto sings”, as she was often called in media reports.

She delighted herself by using her expressive voice for very individual interpretations. For example, I particularly liked the compositions of Italian composer Gaetano Donizetti because he explicitly required singers to be creative rather than strictly adhere to detailed specifications, as she revealed in an interview in 2015.

The “best memory” of the Vienna State Opera

As recently as 2016, she named her musical achievement in 1976 as Zerbinetta under Karl Bohm as lead musician among the best memories of her career. The role of Lucia in Donizetti’s “Lucia di Lammermoor”, which she first sang at the Vienna Opera in 1978 and has recurred since, was also one of her favorite roles. As Violetta in Verdi’s opera “La Traviata” in the New York Mets under Carlos Kleber at the end of the eighties, she said that it was one of her most beautiful looks.

Although she has lived abroad for 45 years and rarely travels to Slovakia, her emotional connection has not broken off, and she confirmed shortly before her 70th birthday in December 2016: “Slovakia is and always will be my homeland. I feel comfortable and happy at home.” Gruberova invited the Opera Theater in March 2019 at the Bavarian State Opera in one of her main roles: the role of Queen Elisabetta in Donizetti’s tragedy” Roberto Devereux “in the production of Christoph Lowe.