Csilla Boross is an internationally renowned Hungarian soprano, celebrated for the versatility of her stage portrayals in major opera houses around the world. Her exceptional technique enables her to express a wide emotional range and a variety of characters with vocal and dramatic nuance, from the great bel canto heroines, such as Bellini’s Norma, through the female roles of Verdi and Puccini to Wagner and beyond.
Her international career has been decisively shaped by the role of Abigaille in Verdi’s Nabucco, which she has sung with outstanding success more than 150 times around the world. Her exceptionally rich repertoire has established her as one of today’s notable dramatic sopranos on the international opera scene.
She began her career within the Hungarian State Opera, first as a member of the Opera Studio and later as a guest artist. Her early roles included Konstanze, Mária Gara (Erkel’s Hunyadi László), Melinda (Erkel’s Bánk bán) and Gilda. She later became a member of the Janáček Opera in Brno, from where her international career also took off. She came to international attention with Riccardo Muti’s iconic 2011 Nabucco performance in Rome.
Since then, she has pursued an international career, appearing at major opera houses across the United States, Mexico, Japan, China, Oman, Australia and Europe.
Main roles:
Verdi: Violetta, Aida, Abigaille, Lady Macbeth, Odabella, Amelia (Un ballo in maschera, Simon Boccanegra), Leonora (La forza del destino, Il trovatore), Elisabetta de Valois, Lucrezia Contarini (I due Foscari)
Puccini: Mimì, Suor Angelica, Giorgetta, Manon Lescaut, Cio-Cio-San, Tosca, Minnie, Turandot
Bellini: Norma
Donizetti: Elisabetta (Maria Stuarda)
Ponchielli: Gioconda
Cilea: Adriana Lecouvreur
Giordano: Maddalena (Andrea Chénier)
Tchaikovsky: Tatyana (Eugene Onegin)
Smetana: Milada (Dalibor)
Wagner: Elisabeth, Venus (Tannhäuser), Senta (Der fliegende Holländer)
Bartók: Judit (Bluebeard’s Castle)Hindemith: Sancta Susanna
She has worked with conductors including Riccardo Muti, Donato Renzetti, Marco Armiliato, Daniel Oren, Nicola Luisotti, Philippe Auguin, Edo de Waart, Ondrej Lenárd, Paolo Arrivabeni, Lü Jia, Marco Guidarini, Roberto Rizzi Brignoli, John Fiore, Will Humburg, Asher Fisch, Tomáš Hanus, Christopher Franklin and Robert Tuohy, and with directors including David Pountney, Franco Zeffirelli, Giancarlo Cobelli, Lorena Maza, Jean-Paul Scarpitta, Yoshi Oida, Thaddeus Strassberger, Bernard Uzan, Chiara Muti, Werner Herzog, La Fura dels Baus, Ralf Långbacka, Henning Brockhaus, Hugo de Ana, Frédéric Bélier-Garcia, Federico Grazzini, Arnaud Bernard, Sergio Morabito, Jiří Heřman, Jiří Nekvasil, Andrea Cigni, Miklós Szinetár, Attila Vidnyánszky, Csaba Káel and Christian von Götz.
Csilla Boross is a regular guest at opera festivals, including Roma-Caracalla, Savonlinna Opera Festival, Festival Castell de Peralada, Smetana’s Litomyšl, the Plzeň Opera Festival, the Regensburg Thurn und Taxis Opera Festival and Margaret Island’ Open-Air Theatre.
In 2010, she received the Diva Award and the Thalia Award for her portrayal of Cio-Cio-San in Puccini’s Madama Butterfly in Prague. In 2014, she was awarded the Green Room Award for her interpretation of Amelia in Verdi’s Un ballo in maschera in Melbourne.
In 2016, she received the Knight’s Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit in recognition of her international artistic career.
