One of Hungary’s most outstanding sopranos. She is a two-time Hattyú Award-winning Chamber Singer of the Hungarian State Opera, recipient of the Mária Sudlik and Bertalan Székely Awards, and holder of the Hungarian Silver Cross of Merit.
The beginning of her international career was marked by her overwhelming victory at the 2009 Geneva International Singing Competition. Since then, she has appeared on the most significant national and international stages in opera roles, concerts, and song recitals alike.
Her most important roles include the Italian Puccini and Verdi heroines: Mimì, Liù, Magda, Desdemona, Violetta, and Amelia in Simon Boccanegra, as well as Leoncavallo’s Nedda. She is equally recognized for Mozart’s Countess, Ilia, Donna Anna, and Pamina, as well as Wagner and Strauss heroines such as Arabella, the Marschallin, Daphne, Eva, Gutrune, the Third Norn, Woglinde, Weber’s Agathe, and the Goose Girl (Gänsemagd) in Humperdinck’s Königskinder. She has also performed with great success as Debussy’s Mélisande, Bizet’s Micaëla, Dorotka in Weinberger’s Schwanda, Gluck’s Euridice, Handel’s Partenope, and Purcell’s Dido.
At the heart of bel canto, in Modena at the Teatro Comunale Pavarotti, she made her debut in 2007 as one of Mirella Freni’s most cherished students. She later refined her vocal technique in Hanover with Carol Richardson-Smith and Jeffrey Smith, expanding her German repertoire. Júlia Bikfalvy remains her mentor, coach, and spiritual support to this day, having launched her singing career in 2001.
She made her debut at La Scala in Milan in 2023 in Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, followed by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 under Riccardo Chailly. In 2026, she returned as Woglinde in David McVicar’s Ring production with Alexander Soddy and Simone Young. She made a successful debut as Desdemona at the Semperoper Dresden in 2025. She is a regular performer at the Budapest Wagner Days under the musical direction of Ádám Fischer, where she has been heard in roles such as Gutrune and Eva. She considers both the Hungarian State Opera and Graz Opera her artistic homes, where she has debuted many of her most significant roles and worked with directors such as Georges Delnon, Kirsten Dehlholm, Miklós Szinetár, Frank Hilbrich, Dirk Schmeding, and Philipp Krenn. With the Freiburger Barockorchester and René Jacobs, she has sung Donna Anna, Ilia, Euridice, and Agathe on numerous European tours.
Her concert repertoire has expanded through numerous performances of symphonic and chamber works, including Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Ádám Fischer and Riccardo Chailly; Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 with Gergely Madaras; Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with Henrik Nánási and Clemens Schuldt; Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 with Ádám Fischer and Riccardo Chailly; Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 14 with Michael Sanderling; Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 (“Lobgesang”) with Thomas Dausgaard; and Górecki’s Symphony No. 3 with Gergely Vajda.
She has also performed Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with René Jacobs and András Keller; Beethoven’s Egmont with Nikolai Alexeev; Dvořák’s Te Deum and Stabat Mater with Florian Helgath; Fauré’s Requiem at the Grand Théâtre de Genève; Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass at St. Michael’s Church in Hamburg; Bruckner’s Te Deum with János Kovács; Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle and Stabat Mater with Riccardo Frizza; Vivaldi’s Gloria with Manfred Huss; Haydn’s Die sieben letzten Worte unseres Erlösers with Gergely Dubóczky; José Cura’s Te Deum, conducted by the composer at the Enescu Festival; Bach’s St John Passion with Tibor Bogányi; Mendelssohn’s Paulus and Elijah with György Vashegyi, as well as Psalm 42 with János Kovács; Verdi’s Requiem with Francesco Angelico; Donizetti’s Messa di Requiem with Speranza Scappucci; Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem with Péter Dobszay; Handel’s Brockes Passion with Howard Arman; Liszt’s Missa Solemnis with Róbert Farkas; and Arvo Pärt’s Como cierva sedienta, performed in the presence of the composer on the occasion of his 80th birthday at the Manchester Chamber Festival with Gábor Takács-Nagy.
Her vocal-symphonic concert repertoire further includes Debussy’s Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien with Csaba Somos and La voix humaine with Máté Szabó-Sipos; Ravel’s Shéhérazade with Vasily Sinaisky; Britten’s Les Illuminations with the Budapest Strings; Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été with Francesco Angelico; Levente Gyöngyösi’s Istenkép and Illés szekerén with Gergely Kesselyák; Mahler songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn with Gergely Dubóczky; Strauss’ Four Last Songs with János Kovács and Alejo Pérez; Mosolov’s Four Newspaper Announcements and Three Children’s Songs with Francesco Bossaglia; and Shostakovich’s Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok, including performances at the Festival Academy.
Her song recitals with pianist Jan Philip Schulze include programmes such as Orient Express, Songs from the Red October Revolution to Perestroika, Flower Power, and Dans le salon de Pauline Viardot, performed at venues including Teatro Bibiena in Mantua, Radio France, the Davos Festival, Tonhalle Zürich, the Louvre Museum in Paris, Budapest Music Center, the Stanislavsky Theatre in Moscow, the Capitole de Toulouse, and the Budapest Spring Festival.
Hungarian Radio preserves, among others, her recordings of Mussorgsky’s song cycle Detskaya, as well as songs by Purcell and Dowland.
She is also devoted to operetta, a genre in which she has performed in productions with WDR Cologne and Helmuth Froschauer, at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with Marc Albrecht, with the Tatarstan Symphony Orchestra and Alexander Sladkovsky, at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, and in the Salute to Vienna concert series in Toronto.
She has appeared in gala concerts alongside star partners such as Elīna Garanča at Müpa Budapest, José Carreras and Plácido Domingo at the Papp László Budapest Sport Arena, José Cura at VeszprémFest, and Erwin Schrott at the Margaret Island Open-Air Stage.
Recordings
Polina Pasztircsák – Strauss, Shostakovich, Bartók, Kodály. Musikkollegium Winterthur, Alexander Rahbari – 2010, La Dolce Volta
Mozart Arias with Sabine Meyer. Kammerorchester Basel, Andreas Spering – 2013, Sony Classical
Mahler: Symphony No. 8. Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Ádám Fischer – 2018, Deutschlandfunk
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 14. Dresdner Philharmonie, Michael Sanderling – 2019, Sony Classical
Beethoven: Missa Solemnis. Freiburger Barockorchester, René Jacobs – 2021, Harmonia Mundi
Weber: Der Freischütz. Freiburger Barockorchester, René Jacobs – 2022, Harmonia Mundi
Dvořák: Stabat Mater. Bochumer Symphoniker, Florian Helgath – 2024, Coviello Classics
