Éva Marton
Encyclopedia
Éva Marton is a Hungarian
dramatic soprano
, particularly known for her operatic portrayals of Puccini
's Turandot
and Tosca
, and Wagner
ian roles.
, where she studied voice at the Franz Liszt
Academy. She made her professional debut as Kate Pinkerton in Puccini
's Madama Butterfly
at Hungary's Margaret Island
summer festival. At the Hungarian State Opera, she made her debut as Queen of Shemaka in Rimsky-Korsakov
's The Golden Cockerel
in 1968.
In 1972, she was invited by Christoph von Dohnányi
to make her debut as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro
at the Frankfurt Opera. That same year, she sang Matilde in Rossini's William Tell
in Florence
, conducted by Riccardo Muti
. She also returned to Budapest to sing Odabella in Verdi
's Attila
. In 1973, Marton made her debut at the Vienna State Opera
in Puccini's Tosca
. In 1977, she sang at the Hamburg State Opera, in the role of the Empress in Richard Strauss
's Die Frau ohne Schatten
, and made her San Francisco Opera debut in the title role of Verdi's Aida
. In 1978, Marton made her debut at La Scala
in Milan as Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore
. She debuted at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
in 1979 as Maddalena in Giordano
's Andrea Chénier
.
In 1981, she performed at the Munich Opera Festival in the title role of Die ägyptische Helena
by Richard Strauss, Wolfgang Sawallisch
conducting. She sang the role of Leonore in Beethoven
's Fidelio
in 1982 and 1983, both performances conducted by Lorin Maazel
.
debut in New York in the role of Eva in Richard Wagner
's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
. At the Bayreuth Festival she sang both Elisabeth and Venus in Tannhäuser
in 1977-1978. In 1982, Marton performed the role of Elisabeth in Tannhäuser at the Metropolitan Opera. Of that performance, The New York Times
wrote:
Marton later became a frequent interpreter of the role of Brünnhilde in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen
. She performed in the complete Zubin Mehta
-led Ring cycle at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
in 1996. In 1998, she appeared in a new production of Lohengrin
at the Hamburg State Opera, portraying Ortrud.
at the Vienna State Opera in 1983. It became a role with which she has been closely identified. Since 1983, she has performed the role over a hundred times including at the Metropolitan Opera
, La Scala
, Arena di Verona
, San Francisco Opera
, Lyric Opera of Chicago
, Washington Opera, Opera Company of Boston
under Sarah Caldwell (in 1983), Barcelona, Houston Grand Opera. She has also portrayed Turandot in six television and video productions, including a Vienna State Opera production directed by Harold Prince, a Metropolitan Opera production created by Franco Zeffirelli
production and a production designed by David Hockney
filmed at the San Francisco Opera. She also sang Turandot at the world renowned opera house, the Aurora Opera house in Gozo, Malta. She has recorded the role twice, conducted by Lorin Maazel
and later Roberto Abbado
.
at Hamburg State Opera in 2000, and Kundry in Parsifal
in Barcelona and Lisbon in 2001. In 2006 and 2007, she performed in a concert version of Giordano
's Fedora at the Miskolc Opera Festival
, in Elektra
by Richard Strauss
at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein
in Düsseldorf
, and in Janáček
's Jenůfa
in Hamburg, in the role of the Kostelnicka. She retired from the operatic stage after performing the role of Klytemnestra in Elektra in Barcelona (Spain) in February and March 2008. However, she sang Klytämnestra in a staged performance of Elektra in Grand Théâtre de Genève in November 2010.
She also keeps a small studio at the List Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary.
Marton received the Persian Golden Lioness Lifetime Achievement Award in operatic music from The World Academy of Arts, Literature and Media - WAALM in 2006.
Hungary
Hungary , officially the Republic of Hungary , is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is situated in the Carpathian Basin and is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine and Romania to the east, Serbia and Croatia to the south, Slovenia to the southwest and Austria to the west. The...
dramatic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, particularly known for her operatic portrayals of Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
's Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
and Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, and Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
ian roles.
Vocal training and early years
Marton was born in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, where she studied voice at the Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
Academy. She made her professional debut as Kate Pinkerton in Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
's Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...
at Hungary's Margaret Island
Margaret Island
Margaret Island is a long island, 500 metres wide, in the middle of the Danube in central Budapest, Hungary. It belongs administratively to the 13th district. The island is mostly covered by landscape parks, and is a popular recreational area. Its medieval ruins are reminders of its importance...
summer festival. At the Hungarian State Opera, she made her debut as Queen of Shemaka in Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
's The Golden Cockerel
The Golden Cockerel
The Golden Cockerel is an opera in three acts, with short prologue and even shorter epilogue, by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Its libretto, by Vladimir Belsky, derives from Alexander Pushkin's 1834 poem The Tale of the Golden Cockerel, which in turn is based on two chapters of Tales of the Alhambra by...
in 1968.
In 1972, she was invited by Christoph von Dohnányi
Christoph von Dohnányi
Christoph von Dohnányi is a German conductor of Hungarian ancestry.- Youth and World War II :Dohnányi was born in Berlin, Germany to jurist Hans von Dohnányi and Christine Bonhoeffer. His uncle on his mother's side was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theologian/ethicist...
to make her debut as the Countess in The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
at the Frankfurt Opera. That same year, she sang Matilde in Rossini's William Tell
William Tell (opera)
Guillaume Tell is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell. Based on the legend of William Tell, this opera was Rossini's last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years...
in Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, conducted by Riccardo Muti
Riccardo Muti
Riccardo Muti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI is an Italian conductor and music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.-Childhood and education:...
. She also returned to Budapest to sing Odabella in Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Attila
Attila (opera)
Attila is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the play Attila, König der Hunnen by Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner. Initially, Verdi had enlisted Francesco Maria Piave to prepare the libretto, after Verdi's own scenario...
. In 1973, Marton made her debut at the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
in Puccini's Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
. In 1977, she sang at the Hamburg State Opera, in the role of the Empress in Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917...
, and made her San Francisco Opera debut in the title role of Verdi's Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
. In 1978, Marton made her debut at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in Milan as Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
. She debuted at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
in 1979 as Maddalena in Giordano
Umberto Giordano
Umberto Menotti Maria Giordano was an Italian composer, mainly of operas.He was born in Foggia in Puglia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples...
's Andrea Chénier
Andrea Chénier
Andrea Chénier is a verismo opera in four acts by the composer Umberto Giordano, set to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica. It is based loosely on the life of the French poet, André Chénier , who was executed during the French Revolution....
.
In 1981, she performed at the Munich Opera Festival in the title role of Die ägyptische Helena
Die ägyptische Helena
Die ägyptische Helena is an opera in two acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It premiered at the Dresden Semperoper on June 6, 1928...
by Richard Strauss, Wolfgang Sawallisch
Wolfgang Sawallisch
Wolfgang Sawallisch is a retired German conductor and pianist.-Biography:Sawallisch was born in Munich, and studied composition and pianoforte there privately: at the conclusion of the war, in 1946 he continued his studies at the Munich High School for Music and passed his final examination for...
conducting. She sang the role of Leonore in Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
in 1982 and 1983, both performances conducted by Lorin Maazel
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...
.
Wagnerian roles
In 1976, she made her Metropolitan OperaMetropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
debut in New York in the role of Eva in Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
. At the Bayreuth Festival she sang both Elisabeth and Venus in Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
in 1977-1978. In 1982, Marton performed the role of Elisabeth in Tannhäuser at the Metropolitan Opera. Of that performance, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote:
The arrival on the scene of a fully matured Wagnerian singer is always good news, however long we must wait between dispatches from the front. The news today is that Eva Marton has arrived. The Hungarian artist, portraying Elisabeth for the first time with the Metropolitan Opera in Monday night's Tannhäuser, showed that she has the vocal and temperamental qualities to become the opera world's next important dramatic soprano. She may, in fact, already be there. The timbre is right, the sheer staying power is impressive and the instincts are those of a born actress.
Marton later became a frequent interpreter of the role of Brünnhilde in Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
. She performed in the complete Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta
Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.-Biography:...
-led Ring cycle at the Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
in 1996. In 1998, she appeared in a new production of Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
at the Hamburg State Opera, portraying Ortrud.
Turandot
Marton first sang the title role of Puccini's last opera TurandotTurandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
at the Vienna State Opera in 1983. It became a role with which she has been closely identified. Since 1983, she has performed the role over a hundred times including at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
, Arena di Verona
Verona
Verona ; German Bern, Dietrichsbern or Welschbern) is a city in the Veneto, northern Italy, with approx. 265,000 inhabitants and one of the seven chef-lieus of the region. It is the second largest city municipality in the region and the third of North-Eastern Italy. The metropolitan area of Verona...
, San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
, Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago
Lyric Opera of Chicago is one of the leading opera companies in the United States. It was founded in Chicago in 1952, under the name 'Lyric Theatre of Chicago' by Carol Fox, Nicolà Rescigno and Lawrence Kelly, with a season that included Maria Callas's American debut in Norma...
, Washington Opera, Opera Company of Boston
Opera Company of Boston
The Opera Company of Boston was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts that was active during the late 1950s through the early 1990s. The company was founded by American conductor Sarah Caldwell in 1958 under the name Boston Opera Group. At one time, the touring arm of the...
under Sarah Caldwell (in 1983), Barcelona, Houston Grand Opera. She has also portrayed Turandot in six television and video productions, including a Vienna State Opera production directed by Harold Prince, a Metropolitan Opera production created by Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli
Franco Zeffirelli KBE is an Italian director and producer of films and television. He is also a director and designer of operas and a former senator for the Italian center-right Forza Italia party....
production and a production designed by David Hockney
David Hockney
David Hockney, CH, RA, is an English painter, draughtsman, printmaker, stage designer and photographer, who is based in Bridlington, Yorkshire and Kensington, London....
filmed at the San Francisco Opera. She also sang Turandot at the world renowned opera house, the Aurora Opera house in Gozo, Malta. She has recorded the role twice, conducted by Lorin Maazel
Lorin Maazel
Lorin Varencove Maazel is an American conductor, violinist and composer.- Early life :Maazel was born to Jewish-American parents in Neuilly-sur-Seine in France and brought up in the United States, primarily at his parents' home in Pittsburgh's Oakland neighborhood. His father, Lincoln Maazel , was...
and later Roberto Abbado
Roberto Abbado
Roberto Abbado is an Italian conductor. He is the son of musician Marcello Abbado and the nephew of conductor Claudio Abbado...
.
Recent years
Marton's new roles in this millennium include Isolde in Wagner's Tristan und IsoldeTristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
at Hamburg State Opera in 2000, and Kundry in Parsifal
Parsifal
Parsifal is an opera in three acts by Richard Wagner. It is loosely based on Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival, the 13th century epic poem of the Arthurian knight Parzival and his quest for the Holy Grail, and on Chrétien de Troyes' Perceval, the Story of the Grail.Wagner first conceived the work...
in Barcelona and Lisbon in 2001. In 2006 and 2007, she performed in a concert version of Giordano
Umberto Giordano
Umberto Menotti Maria Giordano was an Italian composer, mainly of operas.He was born in Foggia in Puglia, southern Italy, and studied under Paolo Serrao at the Conservatoire of Naples...
's Fedora at the Miskolc Opera Festival
Miskolc Opera Festival
The Miskolc Opera Festival or International Opera Festival of Miskolc is a cultural event held every summer in Miskolc, the capital of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, Hungary...
, in Elektra
Elektra (opera)
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...
by Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein
Deutsche Oper am Rhein
The Deutsche Oper am Rhein is an opera company based in Düsseldorf and Duisburg. The opera also has an associated classical ballet company....
in Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
, and in Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...
's Jenůfa
Jenufa
Jenůfa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904...
in Hamburg, in the role of the Kostelnicka. She retired from the operatic stage after performing the role of Klytemnestra in Elektra in Barcelona (Spain) in February and March 2008. However, she sang Klytämnestra in a staged performance of Elektra in Grand Théâtre de Genève in November 2010.
She also keeps a small studio at the List Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary.
Marton received the Persian Golden Lioness Lifetime Achievement Award in operatic music from The World Academy of Arts, Literature and Media - WAALM in 2006.