reviews

The Queen is being dressed (costumes: Eva-Maria Weber) while the councillors arrive with the death sentence. With a sweeping, imperious gesture Elisabetta flings the papers into the air. Here she appears very self-assured, energetic and a little coquettish, fully in possession of her feminine allure. Defencelessly she gives free rein to her feelings of love for Devereux, even though suspicion of a rival is already gnawing at her.

And on top of that she sings like a Queen of Bel Canto: Klára Kolonits, guest artist from the Hungarian State Opera Budapest, is the vocal sensation in Ulm: a coloratura soprano blessed by Donizetti, who can easily hold her own against role colleagues such as Edita Gruberová or Montserrat Caballé, and who moreover possesses a breathtaking stage presence. In her, director Annette Wolf has an actress who identifies with the torn emotional world of an ageing woman, is even prepared to renounce in the third act and like the Marschallin later in Der Rosenkavalier– wants to stop the clocks; too late, the sentence has been carried out. Not for a second does she make a fool of herself in front of the audience. What she finds is compassion – and, for herself, the escape into madness.

2026 February 27th, Frankfurter Allgemeine, Lotte Thuler

Superb: Klára Kolonits, guest artist of the Hungarian State Opera in Budapest. Her Elisabetta is not a power-hungry ruler, not a disappointed lover who turns into a fury—she is human. Above all, human. A deeply vulnerable, desperate woman who knows she has grown old, that the most beautiful period of her life is behind her, and that she can no longer hold on to the young Roberto Devereux. “A thousand furies” rage in her heart, she sings. Elisabetta steps onto the stage almost stripped bare: bald, in a skeletal hoop skirt. You can see deep into her soul.

Then she pulls herself together: wig, dress. Keeping up appearances. In the end, the disguise of power falls away again: this queen stands there just as defenseless as at the beginning—after, in a blood frenzy, she stabs her rival Sara, and Sara’s husband as well, the Duke of Nottingham, whom Devereux has betrayed in the same way. Klára Kolonits sings and acts all of this as an internationally proven diva: with a shattering voice, delicately emotional, with soft, understated coloratura. It is wonderful that the Ulm Theatre can again and again engage first-rate guest artists.

2026 February 27th, Südwest Presse, Jürgen Kanold

The role of Elisabetta was cast with the Hungarian soprano Klára Kolonits. She was simply magnificent! With her wonderfully clear soprano, she not only sang this difficult, coloratura-rich part, but also shaped and modulated her voice, giving the many different emotions distinct character – also in her acting. It was perfect.

2026 February 28th, Online Merker, Inge Lore Tautz

Klára Kolonits: a soprano full of power

The ambitious Ulm project now owes its successful finish above all to the outstanding vocal ensemble, led by the Hungarian coloratura soprano Klára Kolonits engaged as a guest. Klára Kolonits validates Elisabetta’s capricious behavior with magnificent bel canto. Her mature, steady, enormously flexible power soprano has all the colors needed for Elisabetta’s constant swing between malice and woundedness, or self-pity.

Kolonits is an experienced interpreter of major dramatic roles by Meyerbeer, Bellini, and the young Verdi. In Ulm she also proves to be a gifted Donizetti singer, who need not shy away from comparison with legendary colleagues such as Montserrat Caballé or Edita Gruberová.

2026 March 2nd, Schwäbische, Werner Müller Grimmel

The central figure, even if the title suggests otherwise, is the queen. Donizetti tailored the role to one of his favourite singers, who had created several of his works and had already premiered Rossini’s Elisabetta, regina d’Inghilterra. At Ulm, Klára Kolonits portrays Elizabeth with impressive intensity and bravura. The audience hangs on her every word. Her very first, precisely sculpted recitatives convey inescapable royal authority: the dramatic coloratura soprano is supple in all registers, radiantly full and rounded, with rich colours and a slender, flexible upper range. In the brief cavatina “L’amor suo mi fe’ beata”, in which the queen recalls early happy days of love, the voice sounds almost childlike — straight, clear, and pure; in the trio with Roberto and Nottingham at the end of the second act, where Roberto’s fate is sealed, blazing high notes and ink-dark depths ring out at “ingrato core”. Yet Kolonits’ soprano possesses power and breadth; the tone never loses control even in exalted moments of fury, always remaining integrated into the vocal line. The great final scene “Vivi, ingrato” becomes a demonstration of brilliant coloratura and expressive artistry — singing speech in extreme registers — which holds us spellbound right through to the final aria “Quel sangue versato”, where the pure, chaste, crystalline tone of the opening returns. This Hungarian singer deserves far greater attention. At the Hungarian State Opera she has sung a wide repertoire — from Rosalinde through Mozart and Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots to Verdi, from Gilda and Violetta to Odabella — to which she has since added much Donizetti and Bellini; Abigaille in Mannheim is coming up next. It will be hard to match this exceptional performance.

2026 March 13th, Operalounge

Klára Kolonits is extraordinary both in the stage presence and in commanding her coloratura voice that is as agile as it is resonant – clean and brilliant. She is able to convey not only her love for Devereux but also her constant, mistrust-eaten attitude toward him results in a sharply drawn characterisation on top of everything else.

2026 March 13th, Orpheus, Rüdiger Heinze