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Hei-Kyung Hong Soprano

The beautiful Korean-American soprano Hei-Kyung Hong is at the height of a career that has taken her to most of the world's operatic capitals in an enormous variety of roles ranging from the Baroque to contemporary works. Following a remarkably successful debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1984 (as Servilia in La clemenza di Tito, conducted by James Levine) she has gone on to sing nearly 200 performances of most of the major roles in her repertoire at the Met, including the great Mozart roles Ilia, Pamina, Despina, Zerlina and both Susanna and the Countess; Cleopatra in Giulio Cesare; Puccini's Mimi, Liu, and Lauretta; Gilda in Rigoletto (opposite Luciano Pavarotti), Gounod's Juliette, and many others including Rosina in John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles and Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg and Freia in Das Rheingold, again under James Levine. Several of these performances were either broadcast on the Live from the Met series on PBS or recorded for DVD and available on the Deutsche Grammophon label.

Hei-Kyung Hong has sung in all of the most renowned theaters in North America. She made her Lyric Opera of Chicago debut as Musetta, her San Francisco Opera debut as Gilda, and has appeared at the Canadian Opera and the opera companies of Dallas, Los Angeles, and Washington among many others. Her operatic repertoire expanded in these settings to include triumphs as Massenet’s Manon, Tatyana in Eugene Onegin, and Leila in Les Pêcheurs de Perles. Most recently she added the iconic role of Violetta in La traviata for the Washington Opera, with rave reviews and overwhelming audience response. In the 2006-2007 season she brought her Violetta to the Metropolitan Opera as well as her acclaimed Liù and Mimì to the popular “Met in the Parks” performances. She also made her role debut as Eva in Die Meistersinger.

Hei-Kyung Hong’s first solo recording of operatic arias was released in 1998 on RCA Red Seal. She appears on many other recordings and DVDs originating from her operatic performances, many with conductor James Levine.

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