Júlia Várady


Júlia Várady is a German soprano of Hungarian origin born in Nagyvárad, Hungary, who started out as a mezzo-soprano.

Life and career

At the age of six she began violin lessons at the music conservatory in Cluj and then, aged fourteen, voice training with Emilia Popp. She later studied voice with Arta Florescu in Bucharest.
She made her debut, as a mezzo-soprano, with the Cluj Opera in 1962, singing in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice and as Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte.
In 1970, she joined the Frankfurt-am-Main Opera and thereafter sang mostly in Western Europe. In 1973, she moved from Frankfurt to the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich and later joined the Deutsche Oper Berlin. She has appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London; at the Vienna State Opera; at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan; at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires; at the Opéra Bastille in Paris and at the Salzburg, Munich and Edinburgh festivals. In 1978, she created the role of Cordelia at the premiere of Aribert Reimann's opera Lear with the Bayerische Staatsoper.
She was married to the German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau from 1977 until his death in 2012. In 1998, she retired from opera. She is currently a guest professor at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin.

Roles

Here are most of the roles Julia Varady sang and played in staged opera performances. Roles she sang in the studio or in concert are not included.