Štefan Margita
Štefan Margita studied voice at the conservatory in his native Košice. He made his debut in 1981 at the theater of Prešov and sang in Košice from 1983 to 1986. Having won a first prize in the singing competition at Teplice in 1984, he embarked on parallel career as a concert singer, in the following year appearing at the Prague Spring Festival, in Bach's Magnificat. Winning a singing competition organized as part of that festival's 1986 edition earned him an engagement with the Prague National Theater (until 1991). In 1987, he became also a soloist of the Wiener Volksoper (until 1991, as well), and subsequent years saw him as Ottavio at Stuttgart, Savonlinna, Leipzig and Berlin. Stuttgart was to become one of the centers of his career (he still sang there in 2022). But he soon toured the whole operatic world, particularly in the roles of Laca, Filka Morozov (Z mrtvého domu/From the house of the dead) and Kudrjaš (Káťa Kabanová): Salzburg Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Berlin, Liège, Antwerp, Montpellier, Lyon, Paris (Théâtre du Châtelet), Glyndebourne Festival, Houston... He also sang a lot of Loge and Shujskij, and of modern opera (Britten, Henze, Alban Berg). Particularly in the 2000s, he arrived at many important stages: La Scala (2005, Walther von der Vogelweide), Covent Garden, Madrid, Frankfurt, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, San Francisco (2007, Walther von der Vogelweide), Sã Paulo, Tokyo, Aix-en-Provence Festival, Palermo, San Francisco (2008, Loge), Munich Staatsoper (2009, Laca), Dresden, Paris Opéra (2009, Tambourmajor), and the Metropolitan Opera (2009, Filka Morozov; 2012, Loge) Personally, I find him difficult to listen to. While his timbre is certainly beautiful, the combination of strained high notes and a marked wobble is really very incongruent with his purely lyrical tone. Reference 1: Margita's website, reference 2, reference 3
I wish to thank Vladimir Efimenko for the pictures, recording and some of the biographical information. |
