Beatrice di Tenda in 2001. The same year, she withdrew from all her performances at the Zürich Opera, after Alexander Pereira, then intendant, claimed that her dancer daughter's injury, which forced her to quit dancing, was not an occupational accident.. In 2012, she appeared there again in a recital, stepping in for Jonas Kaufmann. Later that year, after Pereira's departure, she performed with the company again, in a revival of Roberto Devereux. Gruberová appeared as Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni at La Scala in Milan in 1987 and as Elisabetta in Donizetti's Roberto Devereux in Vienna in 1990. The latter became one of her signature roles; in a new production in Munich directed by Christof Loy, she made peace with Regietheater in a dramatic portrayal of the Queen, without losing her distinctive coloratura. She always performed coloratura ornamentation with dramatic expressiveness, with humour as Zerbinetta, and in rapture with a high trill as the dying Antonia in Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann. In 2006, she added the title role in Bellini's Norma to her repertoire, at the Bavarian State Opera. She gave her last opera performance on 27 March 2019 as Elisabetta in Roberto Devereux at the Bavarian State Opera. She concluded her stage career after 51 years of singing leading roles, and received ovations for 58 minutes. Jürgen Kesting, writing for the FAZ, allegorized her convincing portrayal of the aging Elizabeth I who leaves her throne and drew parallels to her retiring. She then focused on concerts and giving masterclasses. She officially retired from the stage in September 2020, in part due to delays related to the COVID-19 pandemic which made planning further performances difficult. Her last performance was in Gersthofen on 20 December 2019. Her two planned farewell performances in November 2020, in a semi-staged Roberto Devereux at the State Theatre Košice, were cancelled due to the pandemic. Lied Gruberová was introduced to Lieder repertoire by , a professor at the Vienna Music Academy, and repetiteur at the Vienna State Opera. They often performed together, until Erik Werba became her Lied partner with whom she performed songs by Franz Schubert, Gustav Mahler and Strauss. In 1980, they performed a recital at the Salzburg Festival with clarinetist Peter Schmidl, featuring songs by Mendelssohn, Schubert and Strauss. Recognition Gruberová was an Austrian and Bavarian Kammersängerin, and an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera from 1988. She was known as