Ileana Cotrubaș

✶June 9, 1939

†August 20, 2026

1 candle burning, 8 lit in all

About their life

Ileana Cotrubaș was a Romanian operatic soprano. After winning the 1966 ARD International Music Competition in Munich, she made an international career at the major opera houses, a member of the Vienna State Opera from 1970. She made an international breakthrough on 7 January 1975, stepping in for Mirella Freni at La Scala in Milan as Mimì in Puccini's La bohème. Regarded by many as the best Mimi and Traviata of her time, she retired from public singing in 1990. She was critical of the dominance of directors in opera, sometimes walking out of productions. She published a 1998 autobiography entitled ''Opernwahrheiten, and, together with her husband, a 2017, Die manipulierte Oper.

Romanian operatic soprano singer

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Biography from the article Ileana Cotrubaș on the English Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.