Ileana Cotrubaș (; 9 June 1939 – 20 August 2026) was a Romanian operatic soprano. After winning the 1966 ARD International Music Competition in Munich, she made an international career at the major opera houses, a member of the Vienna State Opera from 1970. She made an international breakthrough on 7 January 1975, stepping in for Mirella Freni at La Scala in Milan as Mimì in Puccini's La bohème. Regarded by many as the best Mimì and Traviata of her time, she retired from public singing in 1990. She gave master classes from the late 1970s, and in retirement focused on coaching promising young singers.
Cotrubaș was critical of the dominance of directors in opera, sometimes walking out of productions. She published a 1998 autobiography entitled Opernwahrheiten (Opera truths), and, together with her husband, in 2017, Die manipulierte Oper (The manipulated opera).
Her voice was described as light and bright with a fragile timbre; Mozart roles formed a core of her repertoire. Vivien Schweitzer wrote in her New York Times obituary that Cotrubaș was able to convey the pathos of operatic heroines with her tender, pure, expressive tone. The Vienna State Opera, her artistic home, remembered that she did not seek "outward, polished perfection", but truth in both singing and acting, and that she was able, by nuanced coloring of her voice, to give individual phrases character and an "audible and palpable passion".
Life and career Cotrubaș was born in Galați on 9 June 1939. Her father worked as a civil servant in the ministry of agriculture. He was also a tenor in an amateur choir. He and her mother, Maria, were amateur opera singers. Cotrubaș became a member of a children's radio choir at age nine, where she participated in operas such as Puccini's La bohème and Tosca, Bizet's Carmen and Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov. In 1952, the family moved to Bucharest where she attended the Școala Specială de Muzică – a school for the musically gifted. At the Bucharest Conservatory, she studied for five years; in addition to voice, which she studied especially with Constantin Stroescu and , she took classes in piano, violin, accordion, and choral conducting.
Early career Cotrubaș made her stage debut with the Bucharest Opera as the boy Yniold in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande in 1964 during her studies. She subsequently expanded her repertory to include trouser roles such as Siebel in Gounod's Faust, Oscar in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, and Cherubino in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro, then also Blonde in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto.
In 1964 Cotrubaș was awarded the Enescu Prize in Bucharest. In 1965 she won first prize in opera, lieder, and oratorio at the International Vocal Competition 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. The following year, she won the ARD International Music Competition in Munich. She then continued her studies in Vienna and was in 1967 successful at La Monnaie in Brussels in Mozart roles, Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. She performed at the Salzburg Festival as the Second Boy in Die Zauberflöte that year in a new production directed by Oscar Fritz Schuh and conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch. The prizes and successes led to appearances in the Hamburg State Opera and the Berlin State Opera. Cotrubaș became a member of the ensemble of the Oper Frankfurt in 1968,engaged by Christoph von Dohnányi. One of her roles there was Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande.
In 1969 Cotrubaș first performed in the United Kingdom at the Glyndebourne Festival again as Mélisande. John Pritchard, the conductor, had seen her in Frankfurt and brought her to Glyndebourne. Her performance, alongside and , won her international recognition. She returned to Glyndebourne the following two seasons for the title role of Cavalli's La Calisto.
Vienna State Opera Cotrubaș made her debut at the Vienna State Opera in 1969 as Pamina in Die Zauberflöte. Cotrubaș signed a three-year contract with the Vienna State Opera in 1970. During her time there, she learned the Mozart roles of Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro and Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Violetta, the title role in Verdi's La traviata, Mimì in La bohème, Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier by Richard Strauss. Her roles in Vienna also included Pamina, Gilda, Micaëla in Carmen, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, Adina in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, Amelia in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra and Charlotte in Massenet's Werther.
International appearances Cotrubaș made her début at the Royal Opera House in London in 1971 as Tatyana in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. She performed there regularly, in roles including Susanna, Norina in Donizetti's Don Pasquale, Traviata, Mélisande, Pamina, Mimi, Adina in L'elisir d'amore, Antonia in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, Amina in Bellini's La sonnambula, and later Verdi roles, Elisabetta in Don Carlo and Alice Ford in Falstaff.
In 1973, she first performed in the United States, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago as Mimì, and returned to perform as Norina in Don Pasquale, Euridice in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice, Traviata and Gilda. At Glyndebourne she appeared in 1973 as Susanna alongside the Figaro of Knut Skram, directed by Peter Hall and conducted by Pritchard. At the Paris Opera she portrayed Massenet's Manon in 1974.
Cotrubaș's international breakthrough came on 7 January 1975, when she replaced Mirella Freni at La Scala in Milan as Mimì, at the suggestion of Luciano Pavarotti. She had to fly from her home in Kent and arrived 15 minutes before curtain time. Her interpretation, "intimate, tender and vocally refined", was acclaimed by critics and audiences alike. The following year, she portrayed the title role of La traviata at the Bavarian State Opera, alongside Plácido Domingo as Rodolfo and conducted by Carlos Kleiber. She was impressed by working with Kleiber who she stated made her go to her limits.
Cotrubaș made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera (Met) on 23 March 1977, as Mimì in a production with José Carreras and Renata Scotto. While with the Met, she appeared as Gilda, alongside Domingo and Cornell MacNeil, in a televised performance of Rigoletto on 7 November 1977. She portrayed Traviata again, with Domingo and MacNeil, in a televised performance on 28 March 1981. Donal Henahan from the New York Times named the production a "pure triumph" and detailed: "From the first puzzled and tentative notes of 'e strano' straight through to the almost delirious brilliance of 'sempre libera' she drew one long, unerring curve of vocal and dramatic excitement." She sang three other roles at the Met: Ilia in Mozart's Idomeneo, with Pavarotti in the title role in the opera's Metropolitan Opera premiere which was filmed, Tatyana, and Micaëla, the role of her final performance with the company on 26 March 1987.
Cotrubaș appeared as Mimì at the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid in 1980. In 1981 she appeared at Glyndebourne as Tytania in Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream, conducted by Bernard Haitink and again staged by Peter Hall. She performed as Ninetta in Rossini's La gazza ladra at the Cologne Opera in 1984.
Cotrubaș performed at the Liceu in Barcelona as Mimì in 1982, as Susanna in 1984, as Nedda in 1987 and as Desdemona in Verdi's Otello in 1988. In more Verdi roles, she appeared at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples as Amelia in Simon Boccanegra in 1986, and at the Opéra de Monte-Carlo as Alice Ford in Falstaff in 1988. She later described taking on heavier roles such as Nedda, Descdemona and Elisabetta as "flirting" with them, knowing that her voice was not ideal for them. In his obituary for The Guardian, Barry Millington noted: "Her considerable strengths lay rather in her ability to shape phrases, to spin a legato line and above all to invest her characterisations with psychological acuity and compelling dramatic force."
Cotrubaș portrayed Mélisande at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in 1989. She announced her retirement from the stage in October of that same year, and, after a series of farewell concerts, officially retired in 1990.
Criticism of Regietheater Cotrubaș was known for being very demanding not only of herself but also of directors and colleagues. While she praised directors such as Peter Hall, with whom she often worked in England, Otto Schenk, Günther Rennert, Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, and Giorgio Strehler, she was critical of any stage director who "doesn't love music and doesn't trust it", admitting that she was conservative. Demanding artistic independence, she walked out of productions twice when she was not able to accept the stage director's view, first in Eugene Onegin in Vienna in 1973 and again in 1980 for Don Pasquale at the Met. The following year she left a production of La traviata by John Dexter, returning when Colin Graham became its director. In 1984, for La bohème at the Met, she refused to perform the final performance due to disagreements with the conductor, stating that she was unwilling to "prostitute" herself "for the money". She informed the press prior to informing the Met. In 1987 she used the curtain call after the first act of La traviata for an apology for appearing in a production she thought was unacceptable.
In retirement, she published a 1998 autobiography entitled Opernwahrheiten (Opera truths), in German with the help of her German husband. It revealed her criticism of the opera business, especially of Regietheater. She wrote about directors who absolutely wanted to create something innovative but ignored the score, conductors who went along with them but avoided looking at the stage, and ignorant politicians who supported the development. She expressed her fear that young people had no chance to get to know operas, but only directors' interpretation of them.
Together with her husband, Manfred Ramin, she published a polemic book in 2017, Die manipulierte Oper (The manipulated opera). They wrote about Regietheater in a wider context than in her first book, addressing opera managers, journalists and cultural politicians, using many examples of directors' ideas they found laughable and distorting the operas.
Concert and recital Cotrubaș sang the first soprano in Mozart's Great Mass in C minor at the Salzburg Festival in 1968, conducted by Bernhard Paumgartner. She performed in vocal symphonic works such as Mozart's Requiem and Schumann's Scenes from Goethe's Faust. She sang and recorded Bach cantatas, Haydn’s Die Jahreszeiten, Ein deutsches Requiem by Brahms, and solos in Mahler's Second and Eighths Symphonies.
For her first recital of art songa at Carnegie Hall in New York City on 7 December 1977, with pianist Martin Isepp, she selected lieder by Schubert and Brahms, mélodies by Fauré and songs by Britten. She gave a recital at the Salzburg Festival with pianist Erik Werba on 14 August 1978 with a similar program. Cotrubaș sang and recorded Hugo Wolf's Italienisches Liederbuch. She gave recitals in the Musikverein in Vienna, in Paris, Munich and Zürich, among others.
Teaching Cotrubaș began giving master classes in the United States in the late 1970s and then took them to other countries. After retiring from the stage, she focused on teaching and coaching young singers, including Elena Tsallagova. In Spain, she taught at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid in 1999, at San Sebastián in 2003 and at the Escuela Superior de Canto in Madrid in 2013.