Hong Hei-kyung

Hong Hei-Kyung (born July 4, 1959), often known in the west as Hei-Kyung Hong, is a South Korean operatic lyric soprano.
Early life.
Hong was born in Gangwon, South Korea, and studied at Yea Won Music School in Seoul. Through scholarships she went to the United States alone at age 15 to study at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and its American Opera Center. While at Juilliard, she appeared in a number of productions with the American Opera Center. At the Juilliard School of Music she also participated in the master classes of Tito Gobbi, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Walter Legge, and Gérard Souzay. She later studied voice privately with Shirlee Emmons. She was one of four young singers invited to attend Herbert von Karajan's opera classes at the 1983 Salzburg Festival.
Career.
In 1981, she sang professionally for the first time when composer Gian Carlo Menotti invited her to perform at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and Charleston, South Carolina, United States. At first, she used the stage name "Suzanne Hong" because Kurt Adler of Juilliard suggested she use a name that could easily be pronounced by English speakers. However, Hong quickly reverted to her given Korean name after the Spoleto Festival; she said that all her friends in the Juilliard School of Music persuaded her to use "her own beautiful Korean name".
As a winner of the 1982 Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Servilia in Mozart's opera "La clemenza di Tito" on November 17, 1984. Beginning with minor roles such as the Celestial Voice in "Don Carlo", Virgin in "Samson" and Barbarina in "Le nozze di Figaro", she got to sing a major role for the first time at the Met – Mimì in "La bohème" on January 7, 1987. Since then, she has gradually moved into main roles such as Susanna in "Le nozze di Figaro", Adina in "L'elisir d'amore", and Gilda in "Rigoletto". Since the mid-1990s she has specialized in more lyric roles including Liù in "Turandot" and Countess Almaviva in "Le nozze di Figaro".
Like many non-Italian and non-German singers, she has not been tied to operas of specific languages; her repertoire includes Italian (Verdi, Puccini, Donizetti), German (Handel, Mozart, Beethoven, Wagner) and French (Bizet, Gounod, Offenbach). But Mozart occupies the most important place in her repertoire; beside three roles in "Le nozze di Figaro" – Countess Almaviva (30 performances), Susanna (10 performances) and Barbarina (8 performances), she has sung Zerlina in "Don Giovanni" (29 performances), Despina in "Così fan tutte" (14 performances), Servilia in "La clemenza di Tito" (11 performances), Pamina in "Die Zauberflöte" (9 performances), and Ilia in "Idomeneo" (9 performances). Among the roles she has sung (but not at the Met), are the title role in Massenet's "Manon", Musetta in "La bohème", Tatyana in "Eugene Onegin" and Leila in "Les pêcheurs de perles".
Although the Met has been her main stage since her debut, after giving birth to her third child she began to sing in Europe as well. She has sung at various opera houses including the Royal Opera House in London (as Mimì and Liù), Vienna State Opera (as Mimì), Bavarian State Opera in Munich (as Mimì), Opéra Bastille in Paris (as Liù, Countess Almaviva, Micaëla in "Carmen"), Verona Arena (as Micaëla), Rome Opera House (as Liù). On January 28, 2003, she made her debut at La Scala in Milan as Musetta in "La bohème". She returned to La Scala as Liù in "Turandot" (January 2004) and Mimì in "La bohème" (June 2005).
On June 4, 2006, she sang Violetta in "La traviata" at the Met, becoming the first Asian soprano to sing the role at the Met. And on March 1, 2007, she sang Eva in "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg" at the Met for the first time. According to the Metropolitan Opera homepage, through September 2015, her most frequently sung role at the Met has been Mimì in "La bohème" (64 performances), followed by Micaëla in "Carmen" (35 performances), Liù in "Turandot" (33 performances) and Countess Almaviva in "Le nozze di Figaro" (30 performances).
Hong also has wide experience in orchestral repertoire. She has sung Bach with Trevor Pinnock and the Montreal Symphony, and the conductor and composer Giuseppe Sinopoli wrote his "Lou Salome Suite" for her, which they premiered together with the New York Philharmonic. She has appeared with the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and many others under conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Mariss Jansons, Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, and Lorin Maazel, with whom she sang the final scene from Strauss' "Daphne" for the Bayerische Rundfunk.
Personal life.
Hong is a Christian whose grandparents were elders at a Presbyterian church in Gwangju.
Hong was featured on the June 2007 cover of "Opera News" magazine.
Hong's husband was diagnosed with cancer in December 2007 and died in July 2008. Having cancelled her whole schedule at the time of his diagnosis to care for him, she was away from the stage for two years in mourning. She returned to the stage of the Met as Violetta in "La traviata" on April 13, 2010. She currently lives in Queens, New York, United States with her three children.
Repertoire at the Met.
Hei-kyung Hong's career at the Met (updated through December 31, 2015):
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Giacomo Puccini
Giuseppe Verdi
Georges Bizet
Richard Wagner
Ludwig van Beethoven
George Frideric Handel
John Corigliano
Jacques Offenbach
Gaetano Donizetti
Charles Gounod
She has also appeared at the Met in four concerts and two gala performances.