Edita Gruberová: The mighty coloratura princess – WORLD

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“You are a miracle animal”. This is what the strict Elisabeth Schwarzkopf once said about the wonderful Slovak soprano Lucia Popp, who left the eternal opera stage in 1993 at the age of 54. But it could also have passed her lips in the face of a Popp compatriot who was born seven years later in Bratislava: Edita Gruberová. Because no one was like her, neither in terms of temperament, nor of allure, of skill, discipline, or the courage to reinvent oneself even in later career years.

This unique career has lasted 51 years – as a coloratura soprano mind you. That should be unique in the annals of the art of singing. Sure, there were also a bit more rusty days in the long, red and gold career autumn, but even then you get passages, runs, high notes that are withdrawn into the Mezzavoce, like no other, so light, so bright, so crystal clear.

And yet Edita Guberová, of both Hungarian and German descent, had a hideous youth with an alcoholic father Lack reigned in 1968 when no one had waited for a debutante as “My Fair Lady” -Eliza in the provincial Banská Bystrica.

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She continued tirelessly. In 1971 she left the former Czechoslovakia with almost nothing in the bus to Vienna, where she had a rude beginner’s contract at the State Opera. And while she occasionally played Mozart’s Queen of the Night with high F’s, her everyday life consisted of all the root roles of the repertoire. You didn’t like her around the house, she consistently overlooked her; after all, she improved her fascinating technique with Ruthilde Boesch.

Soprano Edita Gruberova ends her operatic career

Edita Gruberová sings the role of Elisabetta in the opera “Roberto Devereux” by Gaetano Donizetti at a rehearsal in the Vienna State Opera

Source: pa / dpa / epa apa Schlager Roland

Bellini-Oper

Scene from “Beatrice di Tenda” by Vincenco Bellini with Piotr Beczala as Orombello and Edita Gruberová as Beatrice di Tenda

Source: pa / dpa / Keystone Niklaus Stauss

At some point, however, the grumpy old Karl Böhm took a liking to the “Slovak nightingale”, already called by her fans at the time, and in 1976 put it through as Zerbinetta in a new “Ariadne auf Naxos”. And Gruberova, with her little umbrella turned mischievously, had found a role in life as a powerful coloratura princess. In 2009 she sang there for the 100th and last time. And already in 1978 a legendary “Lucia di Lammermoor” premiere cemented its star status in Vienna.

Was there a longing for the still more perfect moment?

Which, of course, was a very special one. Edita Gruberova sang perfectly, but for some she looked like a soulless coloratura automaton – the doll Olympia, which came to life, spitting fioritures from Offenbach’s “Hoffmanns Erzählungen” (Hoffmann’s Tales); also one of their clearing games. The air in such singing spheres is thin. Gruberová, however, always managed to make new, astonishing coloratura somersaults up there while still tumbling weightlessly. Acrobat, nice!

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And was there, there was claceurs delirium and fan-gasping all around her, never really satisfied with himself, let everyone know. Was there a longing for the still more perfect moment? The always imaginary, never really achievable optimum? Edita Gruberová gave a lot for her career. Her depressed husband committed suicide and the relationship with her daughters was difficult. When one of the extras had an accident at the Zurich Opera House, she furiously gave up all cooperation there. At the Salzburg Festival she wanted – in vain – to shut out unpopular critics.

In England or America, even in Italy she never really got through, so she just stopped singing there. Germany, with a focus on Munich, Hamburg and Berlin, Vienna, Barcelona or Japan, most recently China, these were the arenas in which la Gruberová, beloved by her fans to the very last top note, celebrated her greatest triumphs. With very special hairstyles and robes, everything was Grubi-Style in this strange, grandiose total work of art that she had built herself as a prima donna circus of its own kind.

She could not stop for a long time

Although she, once experienced, could be cheerful and affable, modest, gifted parody, and very down to earth. She never got along very well with the big record companies, so she had her own label built: Nightingale Classics. The covers have long been cult, as has the repertoire, from the coloratura eight-thousander to Disney hits with a Japanese countertenor or Latino cuddly songs: Grubi could be very, very camp. And was only loved more for it.

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Nevertheless, the strictest of all conductors, Herbert von Karajan, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Carlos Kleiber, with whom she meticulously worked out her first “Traviata”, they all just wanted her. In her forties, when even the best of all “bat” aristocrats are thinking about the soubrette pension, Edita Gruberová really got off to a flying start. She reinvented herself as an artist, even as a tragedy at the very highest, namely humane, level in the bel canto repertoire, which has now been staged especially for her. Later also fearlessly, the declining technique sat down differently with a new teacher. And won again.

Anyone who saw her in Munich as Anna Bolena in the finest vocal fusion with her initially rejected Slavic colleague Vesselina Kasarova, there as Rossini Semiramis glowing in the stratosphere or later with her favorite director Christof Loy as the relentlessly aging Elizabeth I in Donizetti’s “Roberto Devereux” (am March 27, 2019 then also her last stage appearance), in her first European Norma in Baden-Baden alongside the young Elina Garanca, in her first Lucrezia Borgia with 45-minute record applause in Barcelona, ​​in her last new role as Bellinis in 2012 “Straniera” in Munich’s Gasteig will never forget it. Because it was so real, so special, so gruberovesk.

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She could not stop for a long time. The person Edita Gruberová had at some point disappeared behind the idol that her followers had invariably coveted. A final reconciliation with Slovakia, a very last Donizetti glow in Koscice prevented the pandemic in November 2020. And now a frightened opera world had to take note that even a Gruberova is not immortal. On October 18 – allegedly a stupid accident in the home – put an end to her life. Edita Gruberová, the last not only Slovak nightingale of ornamental singing, was 74 years old.

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