Around the Music Festival

The estate of world-renowned soprano Edita Gruberová, who died last year, will be auctioned off. The auction will be held by the Vienna-based Dorotheum and will take place online starting September 7, local time.

The auction will include most of Gruberova’s belongings, including sheet music, photographs, autographs, paintings, numerous stage costumes, and clothing items such as a rare necklace that she wore only during performances.

Gruberova was an avid collector of sheet music and paintings, including scores related to Richard Strauss, a favorite of hers, and paintings by Ernst Fuchs, the founder of the Viennese School of Fantastic Realism, for whom she had served as a model.

Gruberova was born in Bratislava, former Czechoslovakia (now Slovakia), in 1946. After studying at the local conservatory, she studied voice in Prague and Vienna, and made her operatic debut in 1968 at the Bratislava Opera House, and in 1970 she signed a contract with the Vienna State Opera to begin her career on the international stage.

Since then, she has continued her career as one of the leading coloratura sopranos of her day, combining an overwhelmingly beautiful voice with astonishing technical skill. She was especially good at Italian bel canto operas, and was called the “Queen of Bel canto.

She died at the age of 74 due to a fall at her home in Zurich, Switzerland, on October 18 last year, but she had been active until just before her death, and remained active almost all her life.

Photo：ORF　/　Ali Schafler


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