Love Is: American Hungarian Ladies of Opera High-Tea

Love Is: American Hungarian High-Tea at the Opera

We are excited to invite you to a special 60th Anniversary benefit concert and Hungarian high-tea at the opera celebration. This repertoire brings together opera, operetta, musical theater, and Hungarian song in a program that explores love in its many forms. Although the selections come from very different musical traditions, they are united by powerful human emotions: the desire to love and be loved, loyalty to those closest to us, attachment to home and country, and the longing to live with dignity and freedom.

Performances by:

Tünde Csonka, Ildikó Rozs, Alize Francheska Rozsnyai, and Zoi Florosz

Piano Accompanist: Catherine Miller

Master of Ceremonies: Andrea Ábel

The solo selections reveal four distinctive individual voices, each exploring a different dimension of love, identity, and belonging. Ildikó’s choice of Bizet’s “Seguidilla” from Carmen celebrates independence, confidence, and the irresistible spirit of a woman determined to live on her own terms. By contrast, Desdemona’s aria from Rossini’s Otello explores devotion, vulnerability, and loss, while Ferenc Lehár’s “Vilja” brings the nostalgia, romance, and elegance of the Central European operetta tradition.

Alize’s “Je suis Titania” from Thomas' Mignon sparkles with playfulness, charm, and vocal virtuosity, while “Ah, szememben mámor” from Ferenc Erkel’s Hunyadi László places Hungarian musical heritage at the heart of the program, uniting the grand European operatic tradition with a distinctly Hungarian national voice.

Tünde’s musical-theater selections explore the joys, uncertainties, sacrifices, and vulnerabilities of romantic love, reminding us that love is rarely simple and often calls for courage, trust, and emotional honesty. Her selection from Elisabeth (Sissi) Musical by Szilveszter Lévay and Imre Kálmán’s The Csárdás Princess adds the warmth, energy, and unmistakable spirit of Hungarian and Austro-Hungarian operetta: joyful, exuberant, and full of life.

Zoi’s repertoire ranges from Lehár’s nostalgic “Messze a nagy erdő” to works by Purcell and Puccini, connecting memories of home and nature with devotion, artistic beauty, longing, and deeply personal emotion.

The ensemble selections bring these individual voices together. Offenbach’s beloved “Barcarolle” from The Tales of Hoffmann becomes an elegant musical conversation, while Verdi’s “Va, pensiero,” sung in Hungarian as “Mint a fecske – Szabadságkórus,” especially meaningful during the 1956 Uprising's 70th Anniversary commemoration, expands the program’s theme of love beyond romance to embrace homeland, shared memory, freedom, and cultural identity.

About Alize Francheska Rozsnyai, mezzo-soprano

Alize Francheska Rozsnyai is an American-Hungarian soprano and actor “displaying profound imagination and control” (Philadelphia Inquirer), with a "superb voice" (Harrogate News), who is passionate about telling stories through classical music which inspire positive change. An acclaimed interpreter of new music, Alize supplies "deliciously diva performances" building a diverse international career.  Alize is co-founder, a soprano performer and librettist with the Philadelphia-based chamber opera company Alter Ego Chamber Opera, whose mission is to tell new stories and old stories in new ways, supporting the creative voices of women, POC and other underrepresented artists in order to create brand new opera theatre "without the ego."

About Ildiko Rozs, mezzo-soprano

"Ildikó Rozs is an opera singer, Bartók - Pásztory Ditta Prize-winning performer, and private voice teacher. Born in Székesfehérvár, Hungary, she began her musical studies at the age of 13 and later continued her training at the Bartók Béla Conservatory in Budapest. While still a student, she became a member of the Hungarian State Opera House, where she worked with distinguished conductors including Leonard Bernstein, Lamberto Gardelli, and Pier-Giorgio Morandi, Adam Medveczky.

In 1988, she was awarded the Bartók–Pásztory Ditta Prize by the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music. She performed with the Hungarian State Opera Chorus for 16 years, during which she also appeared regularly as a soloist in opera and operetta excerpts, as well as in oratorio and sacred repertoire. She took part in more than 30 opera productions and numerous concert performances. Her concert appearances have taken her across Europe, Japan, and the United States, including a U.S. tour with the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble. In 2003, she earned her master’s degree in Princeton, New Jersey. Her repertoire includes opera, operetta, film music, and sacred music. She is currently based in Princeton, where she is dedicated to teaching and inspiring the next generation of singers while remaining active in select concert appearances.

About Csonka Tünde, voice

Tunde Csonka is a former member of the Győr National Theater but also played in the Madách Theater and the Vígszínház in Budapest. She sang in the Children's Choir of the Hungarian State Opera House and graduated from Thebe International Theater Academy in 1996. In 2004, she received the Hungarian Radio's eMeRTon award for her leading role in the musical Miss Saigon. A versatile artist who played important operetta, musical and prose roles in Hungary, and regularly performs in American concerts, including performances of Les Misérables, West Side Story, Grease, Fiddler on the Roof, Hyppolit, a lakáj, Hello Dolly!, Hair, The Verona Boys, and Somewhere in Europe. In 2003, she founded the Nem-ÁRT! Skills development school in Budapest, which she led for 12 years.

About Zoi Florosz,

As a classically trained singer, with concerts, performances around the world (USA, from Carnegie Hall to Birdland, Dubai, Paris Fashion Week, France, Athens, Greece) musicals, crossover style, soundtrack for films. Styles include operetta, light classical, crossover, musical theatre, jazz, chansons.

About Andrea Ábel - Master of Ceremonies (MC):

Praised by the Millbrook Independent for her “complete command of technical and emotional registers,” Andrea (Rea) Ábel is a Hungarian flutist, composer, and multimedia artist now based in New York City. A dynamic and versatile performer, Andrea has appeared as a soloist with the Prague Philharmonic, The Orchestra Now, and the Budapest String Orchestra. She has performed Joan Tower’s virtuosic flute concerto under the composer’s own direction and has also toured Asia with Academy Award-winning composer Tan Dun. Andrea is also the founder and artistic director of COPE Collective, an East Coast-based community of 35 composers, performers, and artists. Through their work together, the collective explores new ways of creating and sharing music while building connection, encouraging reflection, and responding thoughtfully to the experiences of contemporary life.  

About Catherine Miller - Pianist:

A native of Kansas City, pianist Catherine Miller has enjoyed her career in New York as an accompanist for voice recitals, auditions and regional opera productions. She has worked at the Mannes College of Music in the College, Extension and Preparatory divisions, playing for lessons, juries, recitals, workshops and song literature classes. Catherine is the rehearsal pianist for the Greenwich Village Chamber Singers and this fall is working with Amore Opera in their Faust production and the little OPERA theatre of NY’s production of Carlisle Floyd’s Wuthering Heights. Ms. Miller was music director for LOTNY's inaugural concert Gardens of Disguise at the Kosciusko Foundation; she also led The Bohemians at Socrates Sculpture Park, The Mother of Us All at The Box, and New Voices at the Kosciusko Foundation. Catherine studied with Walter Cook at the UMKC Conservatory of Music and Elizabeth Rich in New York. 

ABOUT: AFHLE, Hungarian House, now celebrating its 60th year of operation, offers cultural programming and community activities that build the American Hungarian community and its local Yorkville neighborhood in NYC. As a non-governmental and non-denominational cultural center in NYC since 1966, the community center has served children, adults, and seniors and as an educational resource for those of Hungarian descent to learn and stay in touch with their customs, traditions and cultural heritage. As a bridge to our American community, many offered programs are in both English and Hungarian and include Hungarian music, history, literature, science, film, theater, language, youth leadership/scouting, dance, and seasonal heritage activities. For newly immigrated Hungarians becoming accustomed to American society, we serve as a springboard to integration while providing services that facilitate staying in touch and celebrating Hungarian and Hungarian-American ancestry. 

This event is a non-profit fundraiser for the benefit of AFHLE, Hungarian House and the 2026 Annual Fund. “AFHLE, Hungarian House is a 501(c)3, 509(a)2 non-profit public charity organization. The portion of your ticket that exceeds $45/adult or $30/child (FMV) is a donation that is tax deductible to the extent allowed by law.”