Karola Ágai

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Karola Ágai , also Karola Ágay , (born March 30, 1927 in Budapest ; † February 22, 2010 ibid) was a Hungarian opera singer with a voice in dramatic coloratura soprano .

Life

Karola Ágai received private singing lessons from Olga Révhegyi. From 1953 to 1955 she was a member of the Hungarian Radio Choir. From 1955 to 1957 she was a vocal soloist in the vocal ensemble of the Hungarian People's Army (Honvéd Művészegyüttes) .

Her debut as an opera singer took place in 1955 at the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest as Queen of the Night in the opera Die Zauberflöte by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart . In 1957 she became a permanent member of the Hungarian State Opera. There she performed regularly until the early 1980s. In 1992 she was made an honorary member of the Hungarian State Opera.

Ágai was best known as a dramatic coloratura soprano . Her most important operatic roles in this vocal subject were: The Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte , Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail , the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor , Donna Fiorilla in Il turco in Italia , Gilda in Rigoletto and Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos . She also took on roles in lyrical and dramatic coloratura, including Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte and Violetta in La traviata . In the lyric soprano section she sang Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro . Ágai's other roles were Alice Ford in Falstaff , Marguerite in Faust , Queen Schemacha in The Golden Rooster , Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream . In the Hungarian repertoire she sang Melinda in the opera Bánk bán by Ferenc Erkel , as well as the roles of Erzsébet Szilágyi and Mária Gara in Hunyadi László .

Ágai has made guest appearances as a coloratura singer at the Berlin State Opera , the Hamburg State Opera , the Vienna Volksoper , the Wexford Festival Opera (1964 as Lucia di Lammermoor), the Metropolitan Opera (1969 as Lucia di Lammermoor) and the Bolshoi Theater (1973 ) in Moscow .

She also took on roles in operettas (Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus , title role in Countess Mariza ). Ágai was also active as a concert singer and lieder singer, she sang oratorios and especially songs by Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály . She often gave concerts with her husband, the guitar virtuoso László Szendrey-Karper .

Karola Ágai has received several awards for her artistic merits. In 2009 she received the Kossuth Prize .

In the German-speaking area, Karola Ágai also appeared under the name Karola Ágay .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karola Agay in International who's who in music and musicians' directory p. 8 (excerpts available online at Google Books). Several obituaries state that Karola Ágai died at the age of 83. The International who's who in music and musicians' directory and Horst Seeger : Opernlexikon , Volume AJ, p. 25 agree that 1927 was the year of birth. According to other sources, Ágai was born in 1932, 1934, or 1936. Sometimes the birthday is also given as November 16.
  2. ↑ Elhunyt Ágai Karola operaéneke's obituary www.index.hu from February 22, 2010
  3. ↑ Ágai Karola; Staud Karola Ágai in: Magyar színházművészeti lexikon (Hungarian)
  4. ↑ Elhunyt Ágai Karola operaénekes obituary Magyar Rádió of 22 February 2010
  5. ↑ Csaba Némedi: Ferenc Erkel's "Bánk bán" with special consideration of the role of Melinda and her interpretation by Karola Ágai Series: Musicology Vol. 22, 2016. Accessed January 12, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Ágai, Karola
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ágay, Karola
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian opera singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH March 30, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH February 22, 2010
Place of death Budapest