Singer Eva Pilarová, who died on March 14, 2020 at the age of 80, had an exceptional soprano with a large range, but also perfect intonation and phrasing.
And when extraordinary temperament and a feeling for swing were added to it, it is no wonder that in its heyday it was as popular as Karel Gott. And her hits like Requiem, Thunder to you, love, Night and Day, Oliver Twist or Heavenly Love still lose none of their charisma.
The Brno native first drew attention to herself at the very beginning of the 1960s, when she came to Semafor. She has already had two years of opera singing at JAMU and a short guest appearance at the Večerní Brno theater. She was already a finished singer, with a trained voice and a range of over three octaves, yet Jiří Šlitr made fun of her that they took her mainly because of her nice legs. Jan Werich and Jiří Voskovec considered handsome blondes, and Josef Škvorecký, who is platonically in love, wrote a role for her in the film Crime in Shantan.
In addition, Škvorecký aptly renamed the lover of swing and jazz to Eva “Fitzpilar” – according to Ella Fitzgeraldová and Pilarová, the famous “Satchmo” Louis Armstrong also appreciated the singing in 1965 during a visit to Prague. Pilarová was also strong in cramflecks in duets, for example with Waldemar Matuška. They have already started cooperating in Semafor and Rokok and their songs Oh, the love of heaven, There behind the water in the reeds or He who doesn’t like, are still played today. Like Pilar’s duet with Gott, it’s dangerous to touch the stars.
Hitmakers Karel Svoboda and Bohuslav Ondráček also wrote songs for Pilarová, with whose Requiem she won the Golden Bratislava Lyre – but in 1968 she was forbidden to sing the song. Over the years, she became more and more focused on jazz and swing. Already in 1964, she won the first Golden Nightingale, others were added in 1967 and 1971. And her listeners maintained her favor in the new millennium. Pilarová also performed at the rock festival in Trutnov, where she was applauded by the audience at the age of her grandchildren.
In her private life, however, the singer could not find happiness for a long time. The emigration of her first husband, the musician Milan Pilar, who left her in Prague in 1962 with her young son Milan, earned her the regime’s hostility and a ban on concerts in the West. Even the second marriage with the singer Jaromír Mayer did not work out and she found the right partner only in the dancer Jan Kolomazník. Thanks to his support, she was able to overcome cancer in the late 1980s, even though doctors gave her only a year and a half of life at the time.
–
