Artist database

This is the Artist Database of BMC, which includes information about composers, musicians, orchestras, choirs and groups that are either Hungarian or Hungarian by origin or live in Hungary, as well as information about releases recorded with them.

Hamari Júlia


voice - alto

Place of Birth
Budapest
Date of Birth
1942

 
21 November 1942 Budapest

Beside opera roles by Rossini and Mozart she has sung baroque oratorios, cantatas and operas, but she is a well-known vocalist, too. Her performances are characteristic for an unusual sensibility, knowledge of styles, musicality and educated technical skills.

As child she learned to play the piano. She started to sing at the age of fifteen, her first teacher was Fatime Martin. In 1961 she was accepted to the Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music Budapest where she graduated 1966 as opera singer and music teacher. In 1965 she won first prize at the International Erkel Singing Contest in Budapest. From 1966 she spent a year at the Stuttgart Music Academy as pupil of Lore Fischer.

At the beginning of her career she primarily gained success as concert singer. In 1966 she debuted in the Wiener Musikverein performing J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion conducted by Karl Richter. In 1967 she became member of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf. The same year she introduced herself at the Salzburg Festival in the role of Carmen (Bizet). Ever since she has regularly performed in Salzburg and has been guest performer at the Scala (Milan), the Metropolitan (New York), the Covent Garden (London), the Staatsoper (Vienna), the Paris Opera House, the Maggio Musicale (Firenze), in the opera houses of Dallas, Cologne and Stuttgart, as well as at the Holland Festival and the Glyndebourne Festival. She has worked with such famous conductors as Herbert von Karajan, György Solti, Karl Böhm, Pierre Boulez, Karl Richter, Carlo Maria Giulini, Vittorio Gui, Carlos Kleiber and Rafael Kubelik.

She was memorable as Dido (Purcell: Dido and Aeneas), Euridice (Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice), Dorabella (Mozart: Cosí fan tutte), Sesto (Mozart: La Clemenza di Tito), Carmen (Bizet), Rosina (Rossini: Il barbiere di Siviglia) and as Octavian (R. Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier). Although she retired as singer in 1995, she’s been an active teacher since 1991, holding many master courses. She is professor of the Stuttgart Music Academy.

As acknowledgement of her activity she was awarded with the Kodály Prize (1987) and the Officer’s Cross of Merit of Order of the Hungarian Republic (2002).