Born in Budapest, Sass studied at Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest with Ferenc Révhegyi. She made her professional debut at the Hungarian State Opera, as Frasquita in Bizet's Carmen , in 1971. The following year, she appeared at the Sofia National Opera, as Violetta in La traviata , and during the 1974-75 season at the Salzburg Festival singing Mozart in concert.
The Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music is a concert hall and music conservatory in Budapest, Hungary, founded on November 14, 1875. It is home to the Liszt Collection, which features several valuable books and manuscripts donated by Franz Liszt upon his death, and the AVISO studio, a collaboration between the governments of Hungary and Japan to provide sound recording equipment and training for students. The Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music was founded by Franz Liszt himself. Between 1877-1879 the Academy moved into its present building, a masterpiece of art Neo-Renaissance architecture.
Georges Bizet, registered at birth as Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer of the Romantic era. Best known for his operas in a career cut short by his early death, Bizet achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, which has become one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertoire.
In 1975, she sang at the Scottish Opera, as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello , and in 1976, made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London, in a performance as Giselda in I Lombardi ,  returning the following season as Violetta. In 1977, she made her only appearances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in Tosca (opposite José Carreras and Ingvar Wixell). She also appeared at the Vienna State Opera, the Munich State Opera, the Teatro Municipal de Caracas as Amelia in Un ballo in maschera, at the opera houses of Cologne, Frankfurt, Berlin, Hamburg, as well as the Paris Opera and the Aix-en-Provence Festival, both as Violetta. In 1978, she made her debut at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, as Puccini's Manon Lescaut , conducted by Georges Prêtre, a performance that was televised live across Europe.
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government. Founded in 1962 and based in Glasgow, it is the largest performing arts organisation in Scotland.
Her repertory also included Donna Anna in Don Giovanni , Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte , Mimi in La bohème , Judith in Béla Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle , etc., but she was particularly noted in early Verdi operas, especially as Lady Macbeth.
La bohème is an opera in four acts, composed by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger. The world premiere of La bohème was in Turin on 1 February 1896 at the Teatro Regio, conducted by the 28-year-old Arturo Toscanini; its U.S. premiere took place the following year, 1897, in Los Angeles. Since then, La bohème has become part of the standard Italian opera repertory and is one of the most frequently performed operas worldwide.
Sass has won many awards, the first in 1972 when she won first prize at the Kodály Voice Competition. In 1973, she won the Grand Prix as Violetta at the International Opera Competition for Young Singers. In 1974, she won the Silver Medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, in Moscow. She was also made an Artist of Merit of the Hungarian People's Republic in 1977.
The International Tchaikovsky Competition is a classical-music competition held every four years in Moscow, Russia, for pianists, violinists, and cellists between 16 and 32 years of age, and singers between 19 and 32 years of age. The competition is named after Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and is an active member of the World Federation of International Music Competitions.
Sass has made several recordings of arias, Lieder, and complete operas, notably Bluebeard's Castle and Don Giovanni , both conducted by Sir Georg Solti, Verdi's I Lombardi , Ernani , Attila , Macbeth , Stiffelio , all conducted by Lamberto Gardelli, as well as Cherubini's Médée (in the Italian version), again with Gardelli, Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs and Richard Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder .
Bluebeard's Castle is a one-act expressionist opera by Hungarian composer Béla Bartók. The libretto was written by Béla Balázs, a poet and friend of the composer, and is written in Hungarian, based on the French literary tale La Barbe bleue by Charles Perrault. The opera lasts only a little over an hour and there are only two singing characters onstage: Bluebeard, and his new wife Judith ; the two have just eloped and Judith is coming home to Bluebeard's castle for the first time.
Sir Georg Solti, was a Hungarian-born orchestral and operatic conductor, best known for his appearances with opera companies in Munich, Frankfurt and London, and as a long-serving music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Born in Budapest, he studied there with Béla Bartók, Leó Weiner and Ernő Dohnányi. In the 1930s, he was a répétiteur at the Hungarian State Opera and worked at the Salzburg Festival for Arturo Toscanini. His career was interrupted by the rise of the Nazis' influence on Hungarian politics, and being of Jewish background he fled the increasingly harsh Hungarian anti-Jewish laws in 1938. After conducting a season of Russian ballet in London at the Royal Opera House he found refuge in Switzerland, where he remained during the Second World War. Prohibited from conducting there, he earned a living as a pianist.
Mónika González is an opera singer born in Italy.
Elena Baramova is a Bulgarian-born operatic soprano.
Irina Iordachescu is a Romanian soprano opera singer.
Sigutė Stonytė is a Lithuanian soprano and professor at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre.
Venera Gimadieva is a Russian operatic soprano. She is invited to the opera houses around the world as one of the leading lyric-coloratura sopranos of her generation.
↑ The 5th performance at the Royal Opera House of I Lombardi alla prima crociata. Saturday evening 5 June 1976. In-house theatre programme, Royal Opera House Covent Garden.