Klára Csordás
Klára Csordás was born in Cegléd. She began her music studies at the age of 6 at a school using the Kodály method. She also took piano lessons. At the age of 16 she continued her studies at the Béla Bartók Secondary School of Music and then at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, where she also graduated as an opera singer and also as a musicologist. Among others her teachers were Mária Fekete, György Kurtág, György Kroó, László Dobszay, Benjamin Rajeczky, Sándor Kovács, Tibor Tallián and László Somfai.
She has participated in several master classes, including Yevgeny Nestherenko, Hans Hotter, and Helmut Rilling. After graduating, she continued her studies at the Vienna Academy of Music with Hilde Rössel-Majdan. She then worked in Stockholm with Nicolai Gedda, then in New York with Dan Marek and in Paris with Peggy Bouveret and Janine Reiss.
She began her career as a singer at the National Philharmonic and as an opera singer at the Volksoper in Vienna. She was later contracted to the National Theater in Mannheim, then she has worked for four years at the Royal Opera House and Folkoperan in Stockholm with renowned stage director Lars Rudolfson. She has performed in Paris at the Opéra Bastille, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, the Théâtre Chatelet, the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège, the Teatro Colón, the Teatro Avenida and the Bregenzer Festspiel in Buenos Aires.
Her iconic roles: Dido, Amastre, Armide, Dorabella, Cherubino, Rosina, La Cenerentola, Adalgisa, Marguerite, Maddalena, Preziosilla, Meg Page, Eboli, Amneris, Brangäne, Fricka, Waltraute, Kundry, Carmen, Giulietta, Dalila, Charlotte, Hänsel, Orlofsky, Jocaste, Judit.
Her concert repertoire includes the Passions and several cantatas by Bach, Händel: Messiah, Pergolesi: Stabat Mater, Masses by Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, Rossini: Stabat Mater, Petite messe solennelle, Berlioz: Les nuits d’été, Wagner: Wesendonck-Lieder, Isoldes Liebestod, Verdi: Requiem, Brahms: Vier ernste Gesänge, Alt-Rhapsodie, Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde, 2. and Symphony No. 3, Kindertotenlieder, Fünf Rückert Lieder, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Fünf frühe Lieder (instrumentation by Berio).
Her 20th century repertoire includes: Schönberg: Lied der Waldtaube, Boulez: Le marteau sans maître, Berio: Folk songs, Gubaidulina: Galgenlieder, Kagel: Mitternachtsstük, Ein Brief, Quodlibet, Schnittke: 3 Szenen, Sciarrino: La perfezione di uno spirito sottile, Le voci sott: Lenz Fragmente, Vierte Abgesangsziene, Dusapin: Canto, Pintscher: L’espace dernier (Paris world premiere).
She is currently living in Paris. Th Cziffra Prize-winning singer has given concerts and solo evenings at the Academy of Music in Budapest, the Vigado, the Hungarian Radio, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Cité de la Musique in Paris ( with the l’Ensemble intercontemporain), Radio France, at UNESCO, Munich at Herkulessaal (with Bayerische Rundfunk), London at Wigmore Hall, Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, New York, Am Hagen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Sofia, Stuttgart, Oaxaca, Montreal, Phoenix, Geneva and Tbilisi.
In the world of contemporary music sha has worked with Péter Eötvös, Wolfgang Rihm, Sofia Gubajdulina, Salvatore Sciarrino, Matthias Pintscher and László Sáry.