Today, opera singer Soňa Červená would have turned 100. Her early days as a singer are linked to the Brno Opera, to which she also returned in the last years of her life. To mark the anniversary of her birth, the National Theatre Brno has put together an e-exhibition that can be visited online from today until 7 May 2026.
Mezzo-soprano Soňa Červená was born on 9 September 1925. Her father was the writer and cabaret performer Jiří Červený, her grandfather the famous Václav František Červený of Hradec Králové, who made and invented brass instruments. The beginnings of Červena's artistic career are connected with the Liberated Theatre and the role of Káča in Voskovec and Werich's Divotvorný hrnec (The Magic Pot - the Czech version of Finian’s Rainbow). She also acted in films. However, her ambitions always lay with the opera and her first opera engagement was at the Brno (now Janáček) Opera, where she started in supporting roles in Rusalka. She came here in 1951; Zdeněk Chalabala was the head at that time. She sang Varvara in Káťa Kabanová, Olga in Eugene Onegin, and Dorabella in Così fan tutte. But especially Carmen, who followed her throughout her career. In 1958 she moved from Brno to Berlin - to the Berlin State Opera, from where she emigrated in 1962.
For eleven seasons she sang at the San Francisco Opera. She also worked in opera houses in Vienna, Milan, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Lisbon and all the top German opera houses. She was also a regular guest at leading European and American venues and international festivals such as Bayreuth, Salzburg, Glyndebourne and Edinburgh. She returned to her homeland after 1989. She resumed her operatic career here after 40 years in exile. At the National Theatre in Prague, for example, she played the symbolic role of Fate in Janáček's opera Fate directed by Robert Wilson, the central character in Aleš Březina and Jiří Nekvasil's chamber opera Zítra se bude… (Tomorrow There Will Be… - the story of the death sentence passed on Dr. Milada Horáková in 1950), the role of Elina Makropulos in Robert Wilson's drama production of Čapek's The Makropulos Affair, and Time in Robert Wilson's 1914 project. In the New Theatre she played a character in Březina's chamber opera Toufar.
During her time around the world, she was instrumental in promoting Janáček's œuvre, such as some exemplary interpretations of his works in Czech and accurate translations of sheet music editions. Červená returned to Brno at the age of 92. She played the role of the Countess in The Queen of Spades (directed by Martin Glaser).
The e-exhibition runs from today, 9 September, until 7 May 2026 (the anniversary of Soňa Červená's death). You can find the link here.
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