“The audience discovered me,” says Edita Gruberová, defiantly and proudly, “not the artistic director.” Although she had great success at the Vienna Opera on her debut as Queen of the Night on February 7, 1970, she had to go through the first five years mostly with small roles - sometimes the maid X or the priestess Y or the flower girl Z - content. But that really spurred the ambition of the soprano, who was born on December 23, 1946 in Rača, Slovakia and trained at the Bratislava Conservatory, to prepare for big roles. With her “wonderful, tough, meticulous teacher Ruthilde Boesch”, she rehearsed the role of Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss' “Ariadne auf Naxos”, which she initially regarded as unsingable. When the directors felt they had to hire a guest star for a new production,she forced an audition in front of the conductor of the performance: Karl Böhm. On November 20, 1976 she had the breakthrough success. When she later sang the role at the Metropolitan Opera, where she had previously made her debut as Queen of the Night, James Levine raved about having never experienced "such vocal brilliance". In 1978 she finally put the Vienna Opera in the title role of Gaetano Donizetti's “Lucia di Lammermoor” in an “A star is born” mood.In 1978 she finally put the Vienna Opera in the title role of Gaetano Donizetti's “Lucia di Lammermoor” in an “A star is born” mood.In 1978 she finally put the Vienna Opera in the title role of Gaetano Donizetti's “Lucia di Lammermoor” in an “A star is born” mood.

For more than two decades it was the guarantee for such high spirits. When she sang Lucia for the first time in Munich in 1991, she robbed the audience - in the words of the delighted Joachim Kaiser - "the last breath, the reflection and also the last remnants of the reserve that some may have had against Donizetti's art". The reflex of that success on the Zerbinetta high wire were the many recordings that have been made with her since the late 1970s: Mozart's “Magic Flute” under Alain Lombard, later under Bernard Haitink and Nikolaus Harnoncourt; “Ariadne auf Naxos” and “Handel and Gretel” under Georg Solti; Mozart's “Abduction from the Seraglio” under Heinz Wallberg, then also under Solti.With five solo recitals in the eighties she made the most splendid plea for “the art of coloratura” - be it with Mozart's concert aria “Popolo di Tessaglia” leading to the high G, the kiss waltz by Luigi Arditi or some nightingale tunes. When she celebrated the 25th anniversary of her debut with an anniversary concert in Tokyo in 1993, she began with a vocalise that Camille Saint-Saëns wrote for the play “Parysatis”: musically perhaps a petitesse, by singing in high, in sublime art transformed: through delicately chiseled lines in the highest register; through flawlessly formed ascending and descending chromatic phrases; with bell-clear staccatos and elegiac trills.When she celebrated the 25th anniversary of her debut with an anniversary concert in Tokyo in 1993, she began with a vocalise that Camille Saint-Saëns wrote for the play “Parysatis”: musically perhaps a petitesse, by singing in high, in sublime art transformed: through delicately chiseled lines in the highest register; through flawlessly formed ascending and descending chromatic phrases; with bell-clear staccatos and elegiac trills.When she celebrated the 25th anniversary of her debut with an anniversary concert in Tokyo in 1993, she began with a vocalise that Camille Saint-Saëns wrote for the play “Parysatis”: musically perhaps a petitesse, by singing in high, in sublime art transformed: through delicately chiseled lines in the highest register; through flawlessly formed ascending and descending chromatic phrases; with bell-clear staccatos and elegiac trills.with bell-clear staccatos and elegiac trills.with bell-clear staccatos and elegiac trills.

In the eighties and nineties the carefully controlled expansion of the repertoire followed with a view to the voice. On the stage as well as on the soundstage, she sang the central roles of Mozart: Elettra, Konstanze, Donna Anna and, memorable, Gunia in "Lucia Silla" under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, who particularly appreciated her; further six roles by Bellini, including Norma (unfortunately too late) and eight by Gaetano Donizetti; Verdi's Gilda and Violetta, the latter at the Met under Carlos Kleiber. Finally four female roles in Jacques Offenbach's “Les Contes d'Hoffmann”. A unique moment: the long, long trill of Antonia, who dies while singing.

But when, in operatic terms, she had conceded the throne of "Regina", she was a queen without a realm. The singer and star theater could no longer make a state. She was considered an anachronism, yesterday's diva. She had to decide to show her art in concert performances. Or she has demonstrated her artistry in such a way that she set a note at the highest pitch, held it and held it and, turning her head in all directions, presented it to the audience like a magical delicacy. Yes, as one was inclined to say with Alfred Polgar, "that is an art, even if it is not art".

It was the clever and sensitive director Christoph Loy who, after seeing her as Elvira in Bellini's "I Puritani", asked Peter Jonas, the artistic director of the Bavarian State Opera, to work with Edita Gruberová. In 2004, as she later jokingly said in a conversation, she no longer had to wear historical costumes in the role of Donizetti's "Elisabetta" in "Roberto Devereux". It is thanks to the director that the virtuosa was freed as a singing actress, probably also in singing herself. In the first few years the voice, especially when exposed to the (sharp) ear of the microphone, had sounded hard or tart, glistening or glittering; shone like a ray of sunshine broken through a diamond. Her singing got richer, deeper shades, also through the border crossings of the quiet.

Two years ago, after a career of 51 years, Edita Gruberová left the stage as Elisabetta in Munich.

How banal it sounds, her singular career can be read from the numbers: for example, by the fact that she sang the Queen of the Night, Lucia and Zerbinetta each in around 200 performances.

She, the last Assoluta, died on Monday.