Marta Eggerth | letztes Live Interview am 28. September 2013 in der Komischen Oper Berlin

She was, in a serenely gentle way, something of a German one-woman Hollywood. Marta Eggerth (actually Márta Eggert). Marta Eggerth has now died in New York at the age of 101. Together with her husband, Jan Kiepura, she formed a dream couple of operetta films in the 1930s. The Hungarian-born soprano also captivated audiences in Hollywood and on Broadway. Marta Eggerth was in a class of her own. She was highly professional musically and charmingly sophisticated. She could be chic and incredibly natural. The composer Emmerich Kálmán brought Marta Eggerth from Hungary to Vienna in 1930. From Berlin and Paris, the prodigy launched an international career, conquering the stage and operetta films. In 1938, after the Nazi invasion of Austria, the couple fled to the USA. As recently as September 28, 2013, the Komische Oper Berlin publicly spoke with her by telephone after a performance of "Das Blaue vom Himmel" (The Blue of the Sky). She was very lucid, it was a lovely conversation, and she raved about Berlin. Marta Eggerth died in New York on December 26, 2013, at the age of 101.