Ileana Cotrubaș

Ileana Cotrubaș was born on 9 June 1939 in Galați, Romania. Her father, Vasile, sang as a tenor in an amateur choir and worked as a civil servant in the agriculture ministry. At nine she joined a children's radio choir, taking part in staged excerpts of La bohème, Tosca, Carmen and Boris Godunov; by eleven she was among its leading soloists. In 1952 the family moved to Bucharest so she could attend the Școala Specială de Muzică. She later studied for years at the Ciprian Porumbescu Conservatory with Constantin Stroescu and Emanuel Elenescu, also taking piano, violin, accordion and choral conducting.

Her stage debut came in 1964 at the Bucharest Opera as the boy Yniold in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. Early roles included Siebel, Oscar, Cherubino, Blonde and Gilda. Competition wins followed quickly: the Enescu Prize (1964), first prizes in opera, lieder and oratorio at 's-Hertogenbosch (1965), and the ARD International Music Competition in Munich (1966). She continued studies in Vienna, scored Mozart successes at La Monnaie, appeared at Salzburg as the Second Boy in Die Zauberflöte (1967), joined Oper Frankfurt under Christoph von Dohnányi (1968), and made a widely noticed Glyndebourne debut as Mélisande (1969).

Vienna became her artistic home. She debuted at the Vienna State Opera as Pamina in 1969 and signed a three-year ensemble contract in 1970, remaining closely tied to the house through 1990. There she built the lyric core of her career: Susanna, Zerlina, Violetta, Mimì, Nedda, Sophie, Gilda, Micaëla, Tatyana, Adina, Amelia and Charlotte. Covent Garden heard her first as Tatyana in 1971; Chicago Lyric introduced her to America as Mimì in 1973.

International fame crystallized on 7 January 1975 at La Scala, when Luciano Pavarotti urged the house to fly her in from Kent to replace an ailing Mirella Freni as Mimì. She arrived about fifteen minutes before curtain. Critics and audiences acclaimed an intimate, tender, vocally refined portrayal. The next year she sang Violetta in Munich with Plácido Domingo under Carlos Kleiber, a partnership sealed on the celebrated Deutsche Grammophon studio La traviata. Her Metropolitan Opera debut followed on 23 March 1977 as Mimì opposite José Carreras and Renata Scotto. Televised Met performances as Gilda (Rigoletto, 7 November 1977) and Violetta (La traviata, 28 March 1981, with Domingo and Cornell MacNeil under James Levine) fixed her image for a generation of American viewers. Donal Henahan called the Met Traviata a "pure triumph." She also sang Ilia (Met premiere of Idomeneo), Tatyana and Micaëla at the Met; her final Met appearance was Micaëla on 26 March 1987. Across Europe she remained a Glyndebourne, Covent Garden, Liceu and festival regular, adding roles from Calisto and Tytania to Desdemona and Alice Ford.

Cotrubaș was as exacting offstage as on. She praised directors who trusted the score (Peter Hall, Otto Schenk, Günther Rennert, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Giorgio Strehler) and walked out when she could not accept a concept: Eugene Onegin in Vienna (1973), Don Pasquale at the Met (1980), and a John Dexter Traviata plan she left until Colin Graham took over. In 1987 she used a Zurich Traviata curtain call to apologise for appearing in a staging she found unacceptable. After retiring from public singing in 1990 (ORF notes a farewell Mimì in Vienna on 26 November 1990), she taught widely, coaching artists including María José Siri, Elena Tsallagova and Gaëlle Arquez. She published Opernwahrheiten (1998) and, with her husband, Die manipulierte Oper (2017), polemics against Regietheater that FAZ recalled as attacks on a "parasite art" cartel of managers, critics and directors.

In 1972 she married Berlin-born conductor and critic Manfred Ramin. They lived first in Sevenoaks, Kent, later in Vienna, and chose not to have children, saying a touring life could not give the stability children need. Austria named her Kammersängerin in 1981; the Vienna State Opera made her an honorary member in 1991; Romania awarded the Order of the Star in 2000; in 2023 she received the Österreichischer Musiktheaterpreis for her life's work.

She died in Vienna on 20 August 2026, aged 87. Cause of death was not made public. The Vienna State Opera flew a black flag; Bucharest National Opera announced the news with the farewell "Drum lin către stele, Maestra!" Plácido Domingo, Anna Tomowa-Sintow, María José Siri and others posted public tributes. What remains is a recorded legacy of luminous fragility and dramatic honesty, and a reputation for defending the score against fashion.