The Slovak soprano Edita Gruberova is dead. She died on Monday at the age of 74 in Zurich, as her family announced via the Munich agency Hilbert Artists Management.
Gruberova, known as the “Queen of Coloratura”, 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. Gruberova was born in Bratislava in 1946. It was not in her cradle that she would be acclaimed on stage. She grew up in simple circumstances. Her father drank and she developed a close relationship with her mother. Her escape from the often harsh reality was singing – at home, in the school choir and in the children’s radio choir.
From 1961 to 1968 Gruberova studied at the Bratislava Conservatory. Then things went up steeply: at the Vienna State Opera she made her debut in 1970 in Mozart’s “Magic Flute” as Queen of the Night. In 1974 she sang in this role for the first time at the Bavarian State Opera. Her international breakthrough came in 1976 with the role of Zerbinetta in “Ariadne auf Naxos” by Richard Strauss.