Opera Scotland

Júlia Várady Suggest updates

Born Siebenbürgen (now Oradia)

Romanian soprano.

Julia Varady was an excellent singer and highly dramatic and moving actor, highly regarded for her interpretations of Mozart, Verdi and Puccini.  She studied in Cluj and at the Bucharest Conservatory.

She sang with the Cluj State Opera 1960-70.  Her roles there included Verdi (Fenena);  Mascagni (Santuzza);  Puccini (Liù) and Bartók (Judith).  Under contract at Frankfurt 1970-72, where she added Mozart (Donna Elvira, Fiordiligi); Wagner (Elisabeth);  Offenbach (Antonia) and J Strauss (Saffi).  She was based in Munich from 1972, singing Mozart (Donna Elvira, Vitellia) and Puccini (Georgetta).

Her British debut was with Scottish Opera at the 1974 Edinburgh Festival, where she was a late replacement for Janet Baker (Gluck's Alceste).  She returned to the Festival in 1980 as a guest with the Cologne Opera (Fiordiligi), and finally in 1984, when she sang a concert performance of Duke Bluebeard's Castle, partnering her husband, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.