Opera singer
Debrecen-born singer Erika Gál has been recognised with numerous awards over the course of her career, and she is as familiar a figure abroad as she is in Hungary. Her repertoire includes major roles from Tchaikovsky, Verdi and Wagner, and she has also memorably sung both Carmen and the Queen of Sheba.
She earned her degree in arts, with honours, from the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music’s Debrecen Conservatory in 2001. In 1998 her performance at the Simándy Singing Competition drew the attention of Erzsébet Komlóssy, who has been guiding her professional development ever since. In 2000 she won the scholarship of the Budapest Society of Friends of the Opera, and made her debut at the Erkel Theatre in the same year, in the role of Lola in Mascagni’s Cavelleria rusticana. She has been a contracted member of the Hungarian State Opera since 2000. She won the scholarship of the Richard Wagner Society in 2001. She was awarded the title of Chamber Singer of the Hungarian State Opera for the 2014/15 season. She has been a regular collaborator at the Bartók+ Miskolc International Opera Festival, where she has sung the roles of Polina and Olga in Tchaikovsky’s opera The Queen of Spades and Onegin, respectively, as well as Giovanna Seymour in Donizetti’s Anna Bolena and Amneris in Aida. At the Wagner in Budapest Opera Festival, she has sung the roles of Flosshilde and Erda (Das Rheingold), Erda (Siegfried) and the First Norn (Götterdämmerung). She has partnered on the stage with such world stars as Andrea Rost, Renato Bruson, Anja Silja, Maria Gavrilova, Lubica Vargicova, Yuri Simonov and Ricco Saccani.