Dunja Vejzovic née Crnković, in Zagreb

Zagreb

Zagreb is the capital and the largest city of the Republic of Croatia. It is in the northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slopes of the Medvednica mountain. Zagreb lies at an elevation of approximately above sea level. According to the last official census, Zagreb's city...

, Croatia

Croatia

Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...

, on October 20, 1943, is an acclaimed operatic 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...

 who began her career (as a mezzo-soprano

Mezzo-soprano

A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...

) with the Zagreb National Theatre, where she made her "real" debut in 1970, as Ariel in Stjepan Šulek

Stjepan Šulek

Stjepan Šulek was a Croatian composer and conductor.- Biography :Born in Zagreb in 1914, Šulek began his music study very early by learning piano, violin, and composition. In 1936 he received his diploma from the Zagreb Academy of Music. Until 1952 Šulek was an active soloist who gave numerous...

's Oluja (The Tempest). Previously, however, she had sung The Witch in Hänsel und Gretel

Hänsel und Gretel

Hansel and Gretel is an opera by nineteenth-century composer Engelbert Humperdinck, who described it as a Märchenoper . The libretto was written by Humperdinck's sister, Adelheid Wette, based on the Grimm brothers' fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel"...

, in 1968, at the Zagreb Academy of Music.

From 1971 to 1978, Vejzovic was a member of the Nuremberg Opera, where she appeared in many operas, including principal roles in Orfeo ed Euridice

Orfeo ed Euridice

Orfeo ed Euridice is an opera composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck based on the myth of Orpheus, set to a libretto by Ranieri de' Calzabigi. It belongs to the genre of the azione teatrale, meaning an opera on a mythological subject with choruses and dancing...

, Carmen

Carmen

Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...

, 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...

(as Venus), Intolleranza

Intolleranza

Intolleranza 1960 is a one-act opera in two parts by Luigi Nono. The Italian libretto was written by Nono from an idea by Angelo Maria Ripellino, using documentary texts and poetry by Julius Fučík, "Reportage unter dem Strang geschrieben"; Henri Alleg, "La question "; Jean-Paul Sartre's...

, Die Soldaten

Die Soldaten

Die Soldaten is a four act opera in German by German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann, based on the 1776 play by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz. It is dedicated to Hans Rosbaud. Zimmermann himself faithfully adapted the play into the libretto, the only changes to the text being repeats and small cuts...

(as Charlotte), Dido and Æneas, 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...

(as Klytemnästra), 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...

(as Azucena, directed by Hans Neuenfels

Hans Neuenfels

Hans Neuenfels is a German writer, poet, film producer, librettist, theatre director and opera director.- Biography :...

 in his operatic debut), Boris Godunov

Boris Godunov (opera)

Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...

(as Marina Mnichek), Wozzeck

Wozzeck

Wozzeck is the first opera by the Austrian composer Alban Berg. It was composed between 1914 and 1922 and first performed in 1925. The opera is based on the drama Woyzeck left incomplete by the German playwright Georg Büchner at his death. Berg attended the first production in Vienna of Büchner's...

(as Marie), Aïda

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...

(as Amneris), Lulu

Lulu (opera)

Lulu is an opera by the composer Alban Berg. The libretto was adapted by Berg himself from Frank Wedekind's plays Erdgeist and Die Büchse der Pandora .-Composition history:...

(as the Countess Geschwitz), and Samson et Dalila

Samson and Delilah (opera)

Samson and Delilah , Op. 47, is a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire...

.

Her international career began in 1978, at the Bayreuth Festival

Bayreuth Festival

The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...

, where she enacted 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...

, for three summers. On October 9, 1978, Vejzovic made her 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...

 debut, as Venus, opposite Jess Thomas

Jess Thomas

Jess Thomas was an American operatic tenor, best known for his Wagner singing.-Biography:Jess Floyd Thomas was born in Hot Springs, South Dakota. As a child he took part in various musical activities and later studied psychology at the University of Nebraska and Stanford University. He was...

 in the name part, with James Levine

James Levine

James Lawrence Levine is an American conductor and pianist. He is currently the music director of the Metropolitan Opera and former music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Levine's first performance conducting the Metropolitan Opera was on June 5, 1971, and as of May 2011 he has...

 conducting.

In 1980 and 1981, Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan

Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...

 engaged her to appear in his Salzburg Festival

Salzburg Festival

The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...

 Parsifal, which was reckoned a great success. In 1984, she sang Ortrud, in 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...

, for that Festival. In 1982, Vejzovic debuted at the Teatro alla Scala, as Didon in Les Troyens

Les Troyens

Les Troyens is a French opera in five acts by Hector Berlioz. The libretto was written by Berlioz himself, based on Virgil's epic poem The Aeneid...

, conducted by Georges Prêtre

Georges Prêtre

- Biography :He was born in Waziers , and attended the Douai Conservatory and then studied harmony under Maurice Duruflé and conducting under André Cluytens among others at the Conservatoire de Paris. Amongst his early musical interests were jazz and trumpet. After graduating, he conducted in a...

 and directed by Luca Ronconi

Luca Ronconi

Luca Ronconi is an Italian actor, theater director, and opera director.- Biography :After growing up in Tunisia, where his mother was a school teacher, he graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Rome in 1953. He acted in productions of Luigi Squarzina, Orazio Costa, Michelangelo Antonioni...

. At that theatre, she also appeared in Suor Angelica

Suor Angelica

Suor Angelica is an opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an original Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is the second opera of the trio of operas known as Il trittico...

(as the Zia Principessa, 1983, conducted by Gianandrea Gavazzeni

Gianandrea Gavazzeni

Gianandrea Gavazzeni was an Italian pianist, conductor , composer and musicologist.Gavazzeni was born in Bergamo. For almost 50 years, starting from 1948, he was principal conductor at La Scala, Milan, in 1966-68 being its music and artistic director.He had his Metropolitan Opera debut on 11...

), Tannhäuser (1984), Der fliegende Holländer (as Senta, 1988), and Parsifal (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:...

, 1991).

Another of her great collaborations has been with the director Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson (director)

Robert Wilson is an American avant-garde stage director and playwright who has been called "[America]'s — or even the world's — foremost vanguard 'theater artist'". Over the course of his wide-ranging career, he has also worked as a choreographer, performer, painter, sculptor, video...

, in whose productions she sang the title role of Alceste

Alceste

Alceste may refer to:*Alcestis, mythical Greek princess*Alceste De Ambris, Italian socialistLiterature:*Alcestis , by Euripides *Alceste, the queen and wife of the god of love in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Legend of Good Women...

(conducted by Christoph Eschenbach

Christoph Eschenbach

Christoph Eschenbach , born February 20, 1940, Breslau, Germany is a German-born pianist and conductor. He currently holds positions in Washington, D.C. as music director of the National Symphony Orchestra and music director of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.-Early...

, 1986–87), and in Parsifal (1991 and 1992).

Vejzovic has also appeared in Monte-Carlo (Brünnhilde in Die Walküre

Die Walküre

Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...

, 1979), Berlin, Carnegie Hall (the Verdi Requiem, 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...

, 1982), Barcelona (Hérodiade

Hérodiade

Hérodiade is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Paul Milliet and Henri Grémont, based on the novella Hérodias by Gustave Flaubert...

, opposite Montserrat Caballé

Montserrat Caballé

Montserrat Caballé is a Spanish operatic soprano. Although she sang a wide variety of roles, she is best known as an exponent of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi....

 and José Carreras

José Carreras

Josep Maria Carreras i Coll , better known as José Carreras , is a Spanish Catalan tenor particularly known for his performances in the operas of Verdi and Puccini...

, 1983), Paris (Médée, 1986), Teatro Colón (Kundry, 1986), Vienna (Wozzeck, under Claudio Abbado

Claudio Abbado

Claudio Abbado, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI , is an Italian conductor. He has served as music director of the La Scala opera house in Milan, principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Vienna State Opera,...

, 1987; Lohengrin, with Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo

Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...

, 1990), and Houston (Parsifal and Lohengrin, 1992).

Also in her repertoire are Erwartung

Erwartung

Erwartung , Op.17 is a one-act opera by Arnold Schoenberg to a libretto by Marie Pappenheim. Composed in 1909, it was not premiered until June 6, 1924 in Prague conducted by Alexander Zemlinsky with Marie Gutheil-Schoder as the soprano. The work takes the unusual form of a monologue for solo...

, Rienzi

Rienzi

Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen is an early opera by Richard Wagner in five acts, with the libretto written by the composer after Bulwer-Lytton's novel of the same name . The title is commonly shortened to Rienzi...

, Siegfried

Siegfried (opera)

Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...

, Le Cid

Le Cid

Le Cid is a tragicomedy written by Pierre Corneille and published in 1636. It is based on the legend of El Cid.The play followed Corneille's first true tragedy, Médée, produced in 1635. An enormous popular success, Corneille's Le Cid was the subject of a heated polemic over the norms of dramatic...

, Bluebeard's Castle

Bluebeard's Castle

Duke Bluebeard's Castle is a one-act opera by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. The libretto was written by Béla Balázs, a poet and friend of the composer. It is in Hungarian, based on the French fairy tale "Bluebeard" by Charles Perrault...

, Œdipus rex, Attila, Abigaille in Nabucco

Nabucco

Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...

, I due Foscari

I due Foscari

I due Foscari is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on a historical play, The Two Foscari by Lord Byron....

, Princess Eboli in Don Carlos

Don Carlos

Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...

, Lady Macbeth in Macbeth

Macbeth (opera)

Macbeth is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi, with an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave and additions by Andrea Maffei, based on Shakespeare's play of the same name...

, Fierrabras, 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...

, Thérèse

Thérèse

Thérèse is a film about the life of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux. It was first released in 1986 and directed by Alain Cavalier.-Synopsis:Like two of her older sisters before her, Thérèse Martin is determined to become a Carmelite nun even though she is officially too young to enter the order...

, Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde

Tristan 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...

, and Sapho

Sapho

Sapho may refer to:*Sapho , a French singer*Sapho , novel by Alphonse Daudet*Sapho , 1897 opera by Jules Massenet, based on Daudet's novel*Sapho , 1851 opera by Charles Gounod...

.

Other distinguished conductors with whom Vejzovic has collaborated have included 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...

, Armin Jordan

Armin Jordan

Armin Jordan , was a Swiss conductor known for his interpretations of French music, Mozart and Wagner.Armin Jordan was born in Lucerne, Switzerland. "Mr...

, Michael Gielen

Michael Gielen

-Professional career:Gielen was born in Dresden, Germany, to opera director Josef Gielen. Through his mother, Rose, he is the nephew of Eduard Steuermann and Salka Steuermann Viertel. He began his career as a pianist in Buenos Aires, where he studied with Erwin Leuchter and gave an early...

, Lovro von Matačić

Lovro von Matacic

Lovro von Matačić was a Croatian conductor and composer.-Biography:Lovro von Matačić was born in Sušak to a family that was granted a noble title in the early 17th century. Growing up, he was always surrounded by music and art: his father had a career as an opera singer, and his mother as an actress...

, Jesús López-Cobos

Jesús López-Cobos

Jesús López-Cobos is a Spanish conductor.López-Cobos was born in Toro, Zamora, Castile-León, Spain. He studied at Complutense University of Madrid and graduated with a degree in philosophy...

, 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:...

, Carlos Kleiber

Carlos Kleiber

Carlos Kleiber was a German-born, Austrian classical conductor who spent most of his early life in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Vienna and New York City, and from the early 1960s his professional career in Germany.- Early career :...

, Nicola Rescigno

Nicola Rescigno

Nicola Rescigno was an Italian-American conductor, particularly associated with the Italian opera repertory. Opera News said that "Rescigno was a seminal figure in the history of opera in America, a maestro and mentor who shaped the destiny and reputation of two major U.S...

, and Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Nikolaus Harnoncourt is an Austrian conductor, particularly known for his historically informed performances of music from the Classical era and earlier. Starting out as a classical cellist, he founded his own period instrument ensemble in the 1950s, and became a pioneer of the Early Music movement...

.

In 2002, she bid farewell to the stage, as Charlotte in Werther

Werther

Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....

, at Zagreb, with Francisco Araiza

Francisco Araiza

Francisco Araiza , is a Mexican operatic tenor. As one of the leading tenors of his generation he was named Kammersänger of the Wiener Staatsoper in 1988 and has been a permanent member of the Opernhaus Zürich since 1977....

 in the name part.

She has twice won the Prix Fondation Fanny Heldy, for her recordings of Kundry and Ortrud. As of 2009, Mme Vejzovic is a Professor at the Hochschule für Musik

State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart

The State University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart is a professional school for musicians and performing artists in Stuttgart, Germany...

, in Stuttgart.

Abridged Discography

• Wagner: Parsifal (Hofmann; Karajan, 1979–80) Deutsche Grammophon
  Deutsche Grammophon
  Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
  
  
• Wagner: Lohengrin (Tomowa-Sintow, Kollo; Karajan, 1976–81) EMI
  EMI
  The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
  
  
• Wagner: Der fliegende Holländer (Hofmann, van Dam; Karajan, 1981–83) EMI
• Mercadante: La vestale (Cecchele; Šutej, 1987) [live] Bongiovanni
• Berlioz: La mort de Cléopâtre (Eschenbach, 1988) Supraphon
  Supraphon
  Supraphon Music Publishing is a Czech record label, it is oriented mainly towards publishing classical music, with an emphasis on Czech and Slovak composers.- History :...
  
  
• Brahms: Alto Rhapsody (Eschenbach, 1992) Virgin Classics

Abridged Videography

• Puccini: Suor Angelica (Plowright; Gavazzeni, Bussotti, 1983) [live] Kultur
• Wagner: Lohengrin (Studer, Domingo; Abbado, Weber, 1990) [live] Image Entertainment
  Image Entertainment
  Image Entertainment, Inc. is an independent licensee, producer and distributor of home entertainment programming and film & television productions in North America, with approximately 3,000 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 250 exclusive CD titles in domestic release, and approximately 450...
  
  

External links

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiF1A_kaOAk YouTube: Dunja Vejzovic in an excerpt from Suor Angelica (1983).