Prima donnas: Ilona Tokody

In 1972, a previously unknown student of the Music Academy won the Kodály Singing Competition: it was then that Ilona Tokody’s name became a household term. Her path led directly to the Opera House, where she celebrated her first major success in the summer of 1977 as Liù in Turandot. Her career was founded by such masters as András Mikó and Lamberto Gardelli. Ilona Tokody’s talent could not remain hidden from the world, either. The first stop in her international career was the Vienna State Opera, and from the early 1980s, there was hardly a significant opera house where she hadn’t performed. She might be the only soprano who had the chance to be a Mimì opposite all Three Tenors. The majority of her repertoire consists of heroines from operas by Puccini and Verdi. She always loyally returned to her country, her hometown of Szeged, and the Opera House. A book about Tokody, penned by Zsuzsanna Réfi was published in 2017 by the OPERA. In honour of her 70th birthday in 2023, a compilation of her recordings was released.