Overview
Biography
Edita Gruberová(born 23 December 1946), is a Slovak coloratura soprano. She is noted for her great tonal clarity, agility, dramatic power, endurance, and ability to sing high notes with great power and sustained vocal consistency, which made her an ideal Queen of the Nightin her early years. In recent years, she has enjoyed huge success with a number of the most important bel cantoroles.
Education
Gruberová began her musical studies at Bratislava Conservatorywhere she was a student of Mária Medvecká. She then continued at Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava(VŠMU). While studying, she was a singer of the Lúčnica folk ensemble and appeared several times in the Slovak National Theatre.
Career
In 1968, Gruberová made her operatic debut in Bratislava as Rosina in The Barber of Seville. After winning a singing competition in Toulouse, she was then engaged as a soloist of the opera ensemble of the J. G. Tajovský Theatrein Banská Bystrica, Slovakia, from 1968 to 1970. Since communist Czechoslovakiawas going through a period called Normalization, during which the borders were closed with non-communist countries, Medvecká surreptitiously arranged for an audition for Gruberová in the summer of 1969 at Vienna State Opera, which immediately engaged her. The following year, she made her first major breakthrough when she sang the Queen of the Night. Gruberová then decided to emigrate to the West. In subsequent years, she became a soloist in Vienna and was invited to sing at many of the most important opera houses in the world, especially in coloratura roles.
Gruberová made her debut at Glyndebournein 1973 and at the Metropolitan Operain 1977, both as the Queen of the Night. In 1977, she first appeared at the Salzburg Festival, as Thibault in Don Carlo, under Herbert von Karajan. In 1981, she appeared opposite Ingvar Wixell and Luciano Pavarottiin Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's film of Rigoletto. Gruberová made her Royal Opera House, Covent Gardendébut as Giulietta in Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchiin 1984. Other important roles she has sung include Zerbinetta, Gilda, Violetta, Lucia, Konstanze, Manonand Oscar; she sang Donna Annaat La Scalain 1987, Marie in La fille du régimentin 1987, Semiramidein 1992 at Zürich, Queen Elizabeth I in Donizetti's Roberto Devereuxin Vienna in 1990. In 2003, she added title role in Normato her repertoire, and sang it in Munich in 2008/09.
She is an Austrian Kammersängerinand honorary member of the Vienna State Opera.
Gruberová has made many recordings, most notably in recent years full-length recordings and extended selections from Donizetti's Tudor Queens trilogy and other bel cantooperas, lately exclusively on Nightingale label. More than a dozen of her filmed and televised opera appearances have been released on DVD, including Die Zauberflöte, Così fan tutte, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Ariadne auf Naxos, Norma, Manon, Beatrice di Tenda, Lucrezia Borgia, and Linda di Chamounix.
Gruberová died in Zürich on 18 October 2021 at age 74.
