Príma Donnák - Sümegi Eszter

1993 was a lucky year for Eszter Sümegi. It was the year she received her degree from the Academy of Music, took her exams as Tosca, won first prize in the Pavarotti Singing Competition in Philadelphia and made her debut at the Opera. She immediately found herself in a leading role, as the young. Sándor Palcsó's revival of Bohemian Life as Mimì. The first leading role was followed by many more at home, and Sümegi grew to become the leading soprano of the theatre before our eyes. Her repertoire is exclusively dominated by leading roles, with Wagnerian roles following closely on the heels of her conquest of Italian heroines, and the crowning glory of her oeuvre perhaps being the delicate female figures of Richard Strauss. Eszter Sümegi's name is of course well known abroad, she has appeared in many cities from Vienna to Paris and Toronto, and as Sulamit in Queen of Sheba she has brought the reputation of the forgotten Hungarian opera and her own noble art to New York and Tel Aviv.