Ľubica Vargicová

Ľubica Vargicová’s career was launched in a dazzling debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2003, as Olympia in Les Contes d’Hoffmann, a production staged by David McVicar and conducted by Kent Nagano. She was then hailed by critics for her pinpoint coloratura technique, her glittering high notes and the sweetness of her timbre, combined with a commanding presence on stage. A year later, she won similar acclaim at her debut with New York’s Metropolitan Opera in a new production of Die Zauberflöte under James Levine, when the New York Times hailed the Slovak singer’s “stratospheric”soprano.

Ľubica Vargicová graduated from the Bratislava Conservatory, where she studied with Kristina Figurová, and from the University for Dramatic Arts in 1993, where she was a student of Vlasta Hudecová. While still a student, she was entrusted with soloist roles at the Slovak National Theatre, where she appeared as Queen of the Night (Die Zauberflöte), Olympia (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), and Violetta (La traviata). Her other major coloratura creations at the Slovak National Theatre, where she is still a resident soloist, have included the roles of Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor), Amina (La sonnambula), Norina (Don Pasquale), Constanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail), Gilda (Rigoletto), Ophelia (Hamlet), Maria (La Fille du régiment), Zerbinetta (Ariadne auf Naxos), and most recently, a remarkable account of Elvira (I puritani).

A guest of some of the world’s premier opera houses, she has sung at the Vienna State Opera (where she made her debut in April 2001, as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto, and onto whose stage she subsequently returned to alternate with Natalie Dessay in the role of Amina in La sonnambula), the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, Berlin’s Deutsche Oper, the State Opera of Hamburg, Madrid’s Teatro Real, the operas of Los Angeles, San Diego, Zurich, Bern, Berlin, Budapest, Genoa, and Lima (as Maria in La Fille du régiment, opposite Juan Diego Flórez), as well as at the Wiener Festwochen. As a concert artist, she has frequently appeared in prestigious venues of Europe and Japan, and in New York’s Carnegie Hall. Her profile CD was released by the label Opus.

She debuted on the stage of the Prague State Opera on February 23, 1995, as Violetta.