Legendary Slovak soprano Edita Gruberová as Queen Elisabetta in Donizetti’s Roberto Devereux at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, 2019. On March 27, at the remarkable age of 72, Gruberová gave her final staged opera performance in one of the roles that had come to define the extraordinary final decades of her career. Beginning internationally as a dazzling coloratura in roles such as the Queen of the Night and Zerbinetta, she gradually expanded into the great bel canto heroines of Donizetti and Bellini—Lucia, Anna Bolena, Lucrezia Borgia, Elisabetta, Norma and many others—combining phenomenal agility and high notes with increasingly powerful dramatic characterization. Her association with Munich alone lasted nearly 45 years, encompassing 308 performances and an astonishing 54 appearances as Elisabetta. Few coloratura sopranos have enjoyed anything approaching Gruberová’s longevity: she continued singing extraordinarily demanding repertoire into her seventies, more than half a century after her stage debut. She continued appearing in concert after leaving opera, giving her final concert in December 2019. A truly unique career, and one of the last great primadonne assolute of the bel canto tradition.
