Czech opera singer Soňa Červená dies at age 97

Born Sept. 9, 1925 in Prague, Červená was as a visitor singer on the Unter den Linden opera and the Berlin State Opera within the Soviet-controlled a part of Berlin when she emigrated to West Berlin in January 1962 via the final opened crossing within the newly constructed Berlin Wall.

“I couldn’t stay and sing with out freedom,” she as soon as informed the Czech public radio.

The Iron Curtain stored her exterior her nation for 30 years.

Within the West, Červená was primarily based on the Frankfurt Opera, however she turned recognized for her visitor performances in quite a few opera home in Europe and america, together with in Vienna, Milan, Paris, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Chicago and festivals at Bayreuth and Glyndebourne and plenty of others.

She carried out with conductors comparable to Rafael Kubelik, Herbert von Karajan, Pierre Boulez, Charles Mackerras and Francesco Molinari Pradelli.

In 1962, Červená began her 11-year common cooperation with the San Francisco Opera within the title position of Georges Bizet’s Carmen, her trademark character.

Others adopted, together with Azucena in “Il trovatore” and Dame Shortly in “Falstaff” by Giuseppe Verdi, Herodias in “Salome” by Richard Strauss, Mom Goose in “The Rake’s Progress” by Igor Stravisnky and plenty of others. She returned once more to San Francisco in 1980.

After she retired from opera, she moved to the Thalia Theater in Hamburg, Germany, the place she labored with U.S. director Robert Wilson as an actress.

After Červená return residence following the 1989 collapse of communism, Cervena starred in Wilson’s productions on the Nationwide Theater in Prague. They included Karel Capek’s “The Makropulos Case” and a mute character of Destiny in Leos Janacek’s opera of the identical identify. Janacek was one among her favourite Twentieth-century composers.

Červená carried out final yr on Sept. 29 in Jan Zastera’s oratorio “Saint Ludmila” on the Lateran Basilica in Rome to mark the Czech presidency of the European Union.

Amongst her awards, she obtained the Gold Medal within the Arts from the John F. Kennedy Heart in Washington in 2013 and obtained a medal of deserves, a Czech state ornament the identical yr.