Esther Réthy

Esther Réthy was a Hungarian soprano who studied in Budapest and Vienna, making her debut in Budapest in 1934 as Micaëla in Carmen. In 1937 she was engaged at the Vienna State Opera, where she remained until 1949, singing Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier at the Salzburg Festival between 1937 and 1939 and returning there as Donna Elvira in 1950 and as Europa in the first public performance of Strauss's Die Liebe der Danae in 1952. Her repertory also included Handel's Rodelinda and Eva in Die Meistersinger, and from 1948 she sang frequently at the Vienna Volksoper in the operettas of Johann Strauss, Kálmán and Lehár, scoring a particular success in Heuberger's Der Opernball.