Opera Singer. A mezzo soprano of wide repertoire, she is remembered for her many years as a principal artist of the Hungarian State Opera. Raised in the northeastern city of her birth, she took to music early and following study at the Bela Bartok Secondary School joined the Szeged National Theatre in 1955, bowing as the Housewife from Zoltan Kodaly's "The Spinning Room". Erzsebet spent three years refining her craft then in 1958 joined the Hungarian State Opera of Budapest. Over the next decades she sang about 60 roles, becoming especially known in several Verdi parts including the jealous Princess Amneris of "Aida", the witches Ulrica from "Un Ballo in Maschera" and Azucena in "Il Trovatore", Preziosilla of "La Forza del Destino", Mrs. Quickly in "Falstaff", and the prostitute "Maddalena" of "Rigoletto", as well as the alto part in the "Manzoni Requiem". In addition, she portrayed Nancy in Benjamin Britten's "Albert Herring", Klytemnestra from Richard Strauss' "Elektra", Martha from Gounod's "Faust", the hilarious Aunt Zita of Puccini's "Gianni Schicchi", Madelon in Umberto Giordano's "Andrea Chenier", and the title 'bad girls' of Camille Saint-Saens "Samson et Delilah" and George Bizet's "Carmen", and though she considered Wagner too 'mathematical' was a highly acclaimed First Norn in "Gotterdammerung", Erda of "Das Rheingold" and "Siegfried", and Fricka in "Die Walkure". Though she was praised in Paris, Berlin, and London, and even spent an entire season in Cologne, Erzsebet made the Hungarian State Opera her home up until her 1988 retirement, her final role being Queen Gertrude in Ferenc Erkel's "Bank Ban"; beginning with the 1964 Franz Liszt Prize, her honors were many and included the 1973 Kossuth Prize, Hungary's highest artistic award, designation as Artist of Merit in 1982, the Cross of the Hungarian Order of Merit in 1994, and being made a Life Member of the Company of the Immortals in 2007. Wealthy and comfortable over her last decades, she lived out days in the Budapest suburbs; at her demise, she could be heard on a number of 'live' and studio recordings.