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Update: due to the illness of Andrea Rost, the concert at the Erkel Theatre on 15 October 2022 is cancelled. A possible new date is being negotiated with our co-production partners, but in the current situation affecting the operation of cultural institutions, this may take longer. Further information to be announced at the beginning of next week. In the meantime, tickets will be refunded at the point of purchase until 30 November 2022. Tickets purchased online are refunded automatically.

Iconic operatic roles and adaptations of popular songs feature in the programme of Andrea Rost's birthday gala concert in two movements. The internationally renowned soprano appears at the Erkel Theatre on 15 October 2022, accompanied by the Hungarian State Opera Orchestra conducted by Domonkos Héja, and Hot Jazz Band.

In the first half of the concert, Andrea Rost showcases the greatest roles of her career that spans more than three decades with excerpts from the operas Adriana Lecouvreur, Pagliacci, Don Giovanni, Romeo et Juliette, Tosca, and more. Her partner at the concert is opera singer Szabolcs Brickner, and as a surprise guest, the winner of the grand prize of her own  PályaStart Master Course is also to appear, with whom she and director Attila Béres worked on Le nozze di Figaro in recent weeks.

In the second part of the gala, acclaimed soprano embarks on a journey to popular music with Hot Jazz Band. During the pandemic, they created the compilation Songs from a Girl's Bedroom, which includes arrangements of the singer's favorite Hungarian and international artists from her youth to show her versatility during the festive gala. The programme includes hits of Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland, Hanna Honthy, Marilyn Monroe, Pál Szécsi and Sarolta Zalatnay.

Andrea Rost has been attracted to the stage since she was a little girl. The Kossuth Prize and Prima Primissima Award recipient soprano won a scholarship at  the Hungarian State Opera in 1988 as a student of the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. In 1991, she got the chance to perform her first leading role, the female title role of Gounod's Romeo et Juliette at the Vienna State Opera. In 1994, conductor Riccardo Muti, music director of La Scala, invited her to Milan, which made her internationally known and recognised. During her career, she sang Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto, Violetta in La Traviata, the title role of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor to acclaim, and she gave many outstanding performances as Susanna in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro and Pamina in Der Zauberflöte. She gave memorable performances at the Salzburg Festival, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Opéra Bastille in Paris, and in Japan at the New National Opera and Kirishima, where she also gives master classes.

Photo by László Emmer