Munich Darling
No other opera singer is as loved as she is by Munich audiences. And no one can sing like she does. She is a phenomenon, the greatest coloratura voice in the world, the queen of belcanto: “Gruberová”. The Slovakian soprano Edita Gruberová has, for many decades, been the ‘primadonna assoluta’ at the Munich State Opera. In Munich, she has a particularly strong fan following.
Ex-minister of the interior Otto Schily raved about her “high notes” and it has even happened that her fans in the gallery roll out banners with her name. However, the road to this Mt. Olympus was a thorny one.
Even as a little girl Edita dreamed of being free in the West. Born in 1946 on December 23rd in Raca (near Bratislava), she had a difficult childhood. Her mother worked hard in the vineyard of a collective farm; her father was arrested by the communists and, after his release, was a broken man who tyrannized his family with his angry outbursts. Nevertheless, Edita was able to undertake musical studies at the Bratislava Conservatory. She made her operatic debut at the Bratislava National Opera in 1968.
In 1970, well advanced in pregnancy, she escaped from the communists with her mother to Vienna; her husband followed a week later. However, here too, life was not easy. For many years she had to be satisfied with tiny roles at the Vienna State Opera, principally as a page or servant, and was, moreover, the sole breadwinner for her family of four. The great conductor Karl Böhm was the first to recognize her potential in 1976 and made her an overnight star with the role of Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos”- a role that many today still consider to be unrivalled.
From then on the „Slovakian nightingale“ was much sought after. She received offers from all over the world, committed herself to Italian belcanto and composers like Rossini, Donizetti and Bellini, and became the „queen of belcanto“. Fans follow her around the world; the most famous international opera houses and concert halls vie for her voice - with good reason. With her subtle art of singing, she easily out-sings any of her younger colleagues, many of whom she has seen come and go.
Her most successful and beloved role is Lucia in Donizetti’s tragedy Lucia di Lammermoor. The most operatic of operas, a feast for belcanto fans: emotional, passionate, violent, intriguing, with a longing for love and eventually dying for it, fully mad: Gruberova’s personification of the role is second to none. Most recently, she triumphed as the femme fatale and pope’s daughter Lucrezia Borgia in the opera of the same name by Gaetano Donizetti. She is also a celebrated lieder singer who was awarded the title “Kammersängerin” by the Vienna State Opera.
