Hong Hei-Kyung (born July 4, 1959 in Gangwon, South Korea) is a South Korean-American operatic lyric soprano.
Hong studied at Yea Won Music School in Seoul and through scholarships 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, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, Walter Legge, and Gerard Souzay. She later studied voice privately with Shirlee Emmons. In addition, she was one of four young singers invited to attend Herbert von Karajan's opera classes at the 1983 Salzburg Festival.
In 1981, she sang professionally for the first time when composer Giancarlo Menotti invited her to perform at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and Charleston, South Carolina. 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 back to her given Korean name after the Spoleto Festivall; she said that all her friends in the Juilliard School of Music persuaded her to use 'her own beautiful Korean name'.[1]
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 17 November 1984. Beginning with minor roles such as Celestial Voice in Don Carlo, Virgin in Samson and Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro, she got to sing the major role for the first time at the Met - Mimì in La Bohème on 7 January 1987. Since then, she gradually moved into main roles such as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, Adina in L'Elisir d'Amore, and Gilda in Rigoletto. Since mid-1990s she has sung more lyric roles like 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 possesses the most important part in her repertoire; beside three roles in Le Nozze di Figaro - Countess Almaviva (29 performances), Susanna(10 performances) and Barbarina(8 performances), she has sung Zerlina in Don Giovanni (29 performance), 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), there are the title role of 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 has begun to sing in Europe, too. She has sung at various opera houses including the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden 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 28 January 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 4 June 2006, she sang Violetta in La Traviata at the Met, becoming the first Asian soprano who has ever sung Violetta at the Met. And on 1 March 2007, she sang Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Met for the first time. Until May 2010, her most frequent-sung role at the Met is Mimì in La Bohème(59 performances), followed by Liù in Turandot (33 performances), Micaëla in Carmen (31 performances) and Countess Almaviva in Le Nozze di Figaro(29 performances).
Her orchestral repertoire is as broad as her operatic experience. She has sung Bach with Trevor Pinnock and the Montreal Symphony, and the late 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.
Hong is a Christian, whose faith began in her family with her grandparents, who were elders at a Presbyterian church in the South Korean city of Gwangju.
Hong was on the cover of the June 2007 issue of Opera News magazine.[2]
Her husband was diagnosed with cancer in December 2007 and died in July 2008 of cancer. Having cancelled her whole schedule since the time of his diagnosis to take care of him, she was away from the stage for two years in mourning. But finally she came back to the stage of the Met as Violetta in La Traviata on 13 April 2010. In 2010/11 season of the Met, she sang two parts of French operas - Micaëla in "Carmen" and Juliette in "Roméo et Juliette". She currently lives in Queens, New York with her three children.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
She also sang at 4 concerts and 2 gala Performances at the Met.