Czech opera singer Soňa Červená dies at age 97

Sosa Červená, a Czech opera singer who played Carmen and over 110 other roles in San Francisco and other Iron Curtain opera theaters, died. A 97-year-old.

The National Theater in Prague reported that Červená died Sunday at a Prague hospital while being treated for an unidentified ailment.

In January 1962, Červená, a guest soprano at the Unter den Linden opera and the Berlin State Opera in Soviet-controlled Berlin, escaped to West Berlin through the last Berlin Wall crossing. She was born in Prague on September 9, 1925.

“I couldn’t live and sing without freedom,” she told Czech public radio.

30 years behind the Iron Curtain.

Červená was headquartered at the Frankfurt Opera in the West, but she was noted for her guest appearances in many opera houses in Europe and the US, including Vienna, Milan, Paris, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Chicago, Bayreuth, Glyndebourne, and others.

Rafael Kubelik, Herbert von Karajan, Pierre Boulez, Charles Mackerras, and Francesco Molinari Pradelli conducted her.

Červená began her 11-year collaboration with the San Francisco Opera in 1962 as Carmen, her signature part. Azucena in “Il trovatore,” Dame Quickly in “Falstaff,” Herodias in “Salome,” Mother Goose in “The Rake’s Progress,” and others followed. 1980 saw her return to San Francisco.

After retiring from opera, she became an actress at Hamburg’s Thalia Theater under Robert Wilson.

After communism collapsed, Cervena starred in Wilson’s works at Prague’s National Theater. They included Karel Capek’s “The Makropulos Case” and Leos Janacek’s “Fate” opera’s mute Fate. She loved Janacek.

On Sept. 29, 2017, Červená performed Jan Zastera’s oratorio “Saint Ludmila” at the Lateran Basilica in Rome to commemorate the Czech EU presidency.

In 2013, she earned a Czech state accolade and the John F. Kennedy Center’s Gold Medal in the Arts.