Obviously the best is Klára Kolonits, who plays Elizabeth Szilágyi. This original version’s vocal parts are significantly expanded, and she performs them amazing virtuosity and, above all, amazing dramatic expression. The most exciting vocal expansion is the prayer wedged between the two cursing-begging stages of the closing sequence (it’s understandable why it was pulled out in the ’50s…). Kolonits’ performance of the maternal fear brings tears to our eyes. We feel that she could sing anything in the dramatic coloratura fach. One may build a theater upon her skill, and yet after nearly 20 years of working in the opera house the singer has not sang even a half dozen of premiers. Why don’t we bring out the queens of Donizetti, for example? Her acting is also versatile and expressive, and the way she carries herself is the exact opposite of that of her ruler.
2022. March 20., momus.hu, zéta
Apropos Erzsébet Szilágyi, this opera would have been named after her if judged on the merits of Klára Kolonits in the role of the noblewoman who tries in vain to save her son from the chopping block. The production’s true star, Kolonits’ character unfortunately only arrives in Act 2, but then with the opera’s loveliest aria. “Mint a Tenger” is a showcase of the considerable vocal qualities she exhibited throughout the evening, from her mastery of coloratura to effortless changes in pitch and breath control that carried her through the longest passages with full volume. Her dramatic qualities were also superb.
2022. March 15.,Bachtrack, George Jahn
The cast, led by Klára Kolonits, is worthy of a gala reopening. The moment she appears in the second act, Erzsébet Szilágyi essentially rewrites the outline of the evening. The coloraturas and dynamics of Kolonits are so top level that only a few can keep up with her.
2022. March 20., Revizor, Esztergályos Máté
Klára Kolonits provided a tear-jerking experience as Erzsébet Szilágyi. She mastered the part with breakneck coloratura as if it was a children’s play. She also found an impressive balance between portraying the suffering of the mother but also the dignity of the Hungary’s past regent widow.
2022. March 29., Online Merker, Harald Lacina
Erkel’s opera follows the French grand opéra of Halévy or Meyerbeer in its powerful choirs, but also has three extremely demanding soprano parts; (…) Klára Kolonits as László Hunyadi’s grieving mother make the performance a feast for coloratura sopranos with a lot of high notes. Because of these grandiose arias alone, more opera houses should warm up to the Erkel’s score, which is as dramatically varied as it is melodically lush.
2022 March 22., Frankfurter Allgemeine, Wolfgang Sander
(…)but above all, Klára Kolonits as Erzsebét, whose fiery and dramatically explosive coloraturas are always presented by her noble lyric timbre.
2022. March, Opera Lounge, Rolf Fath
2022. March 19., 168, Bóta Gábor
The Hunyadi myth, of course, requires large-format heroes, and although the Opera House employed its best artists in the opening night cast, we only heard iconic performances from Klára Kolonits, who sang Elizabeth Szilágyi. The singer excelled in the famously difficult La Grange aria adorned with trills, octaves and sequences, she was moving in the trio, and she commanded queenlike authority in her every move.
2022. March 17., Kultúra, Csabai Máté
It would be an injustice not to immediately highlight Klára Kolonits as one of the best, who provided the most brilliant vocal production of the evening.
Erzsébet Szilágyi’s arias hold a lot of neck-breaking passages, but the singer’s impressive coloring skills made even the most complex parts of the music an exceptional experience.
2022. March 21., Fidelio, Kondor Kata
The Hunyadi brothers’ mother Erzsébet Szilágyi is in many ways the opera’s central character, representing not only Hungarian motherhood but also the indomitable national spirit. Klára Kolonits is in many ways an old school opera diva with a dignified carriage and graceful acting and she easily dominates her every scene. She possesses an ample lyric voice and negotiated the vertiginous ornamentation of her opening aria’s cabaletta with considerable style and musical intelligence as well as bringing the intensity of resignation and defiance as her son is led to the scaffold
2022. March 16., Classical Source, G.J. Dowler
The real protagonist of the performance is Klára Kolonits, who plays Elizabeth Szilágyi. The prayer at the end of the opera is a heartbreaking cry of a mother who senses the fate of her son.
2022. March 16., Népszava, Balogh Gyula
In the otherwise familiar role of Erzsébet Szilágyi, which requires a true virtuoso singing, Klára Kolonits deservedly achieved the greatest success of the evening. She made the belcanto style role shine its brightest light, while still keeping the essence of its Hungarianness and the maternal tragedy.
2022. March 16., Magyar Narancs, László Ferenc
Klára Kolonits’s interpretation of Erzsébet Szilágyi is one of the most beautiful and mature stops of her singing career. Not only did she navigate the coloratura races with seemingly playful ease, but deeply identifying with her role, she portrayed the figure of a worrying or at times, happy mother with an extraordinary artistic power. The singer, able to grasp the role in its complexity, put the crown on it with her scene at the end of the fourth act: the audience was touched to tears by the curing-pleading prayer of the mother worried about her son. Klára Kolonits’s vocal performance can only be described in superlatives, her actinh is complex, and she attracts attention with her mere stage presence: her posture is full of dignity, her interpretation – deeply human.
2022. March 13. Opera Portál, Péter Zoltán
All had plenty of spotlight time throughout the four acts, but special plaudits go the marvelous Kolonits for her bravura bel canto and affecting characterization of Erzsébet Szilágyi (László’s mother)
2022. March 18., Papageno, Alexandra Ivanoff