Sylvia Sass completed her music studies at Budapest's Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music between 1970 and 1972 under the tutelage of Mrs Ferenc Révhegyi. She made her debut on the stage of the Hungarian State Opera House in 1971 in the role of Frasquita (in Carmen), and was one of the Opera's soloists between 1972 and 1979. She took part in a number of international singing competitions, winning first prize at Hungarian Television's Kodály Singing Competition in 1972 and both the grand prize and the special prize for best chamber singer at the Sofia Singing Competition in 1973. In 1974, she won second prize at the Tchaikovsky Singing Competition in Moscow, with no first prize awarded. Starting in 1975, she began making more and more guest appearances abroad, taking the stage at such venues as London's Covent Garden, Milan's La Scala, the Wiener Staatsoper, the New York Metropolitan Opera, the Opéra national de Paris and Moscow's Bolshoi, as well as in Hamburg, Frankfurt, Munich, Aix-en-Provence, Salzburg, Glasgow, Moscow, Prague, Sofia, Boston, Denver, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, Miami, Tokyo, Caracas and Santiago de Chile. She has sung the female principal role of Judith in Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle at New York's Carnegie Hall and at London's Royal Albert Hall. She has collaborated with such renowned conductors as Sir Georg Solti, George Pretre, Lamberto Gardelli, John Pritchard, Alain Lombard, Sir Charles Mackerras, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Kent Nagano, Nello Santi and Michel Plasson, among others. Her partners on stage have included Plácido Domingo, José Carreras, Renato Bruson, Alfredo Kraus, Carlo Bergonzi, Boris Christoff, Neil Shicoff and Grace Bumbry. Over the course of her 24-year-long theatrical career, she sang 47 principal roles, including the Countess (Le nozze di Figaro), Donna Anna/Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), Violetta (La traviata), Desdemona (Otello), Amelia (Un ballo in maschera), Leonora (Il trovatore) and the title roles of Norma, Médée, Tosca and Turandot. She has also performed concerts since 1995. Between 1996 and 2000, she taught the song literature at the Liszt Academy, and since 1996 she has also conducted master classes there at music academy, as well as at the Musachino Academy in Tokyo, the Rubin Academy in Jerusalem, the music academy in Santiago de Chile, the Kodály Institute of Britain in London, the Institut hongrois de Paris, the Accademia d'Ungheria in Roma in 2011 and in Nantes as part of the Festival les Art'Scènes. More than 30 albums of hers have been released, including both complete opera recordings and solo albums. Her artistic work was recognised by the Liszt Award and Mihály Székely Commemorative Plaque in 1976. She was named an Artist of Merit in 1978. Her work was recognised by the Middle Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Hungary in 2007 and the Kossuth Prize in 2017.
