Sári Petráss

Sári Petráss (5 November 1888 – 9 September 1930) was a Hungarian operetta actress and singer. In the 1910s and 1920s, she played leading soprano parts in Budapest, Vienna, London and on Broadway. According to Richard Traubner, Sári Petráss and Sári Fedák remain "the two best-remembered Hungarian female operetta stars of all time."

Petráss was born in Verőce, Hungary in 1888 and was a niece to Bertha von Suttner, countess Kinsky.

Petráss debuted in as a lead singer in November 1911 in Leányvásár along with Sári Fedák. The show produced at the Király Színház (King Theater), Budapest became an international hit as was instantly picked up by Carltheater in Vienna and by the English impresario George Edwardes. In 1912, Edwardes "imported" her and most of the original Budapest cast to London. Petráss quickly mastered singing in English and performed at the Daly's Theatre in Edwardes's English language version of Franz Lehár's Gipsy Love (1912) at Daly's Theatre, which ran 299 performances. She then performed at Daly's in The Marriage Market (1913) and in a revival of A Waltz Dream (1913), all with Gertie Millar and Robert Michaelis. Petráss was an expert horse rider, and rode a donkey called Jenny in the opening scenes of The Marriage Market.

In February 1916, the American media spread a rumour that Petráss had been executed in Budapest as a spy. Allegedly, after the outbreak of World War I she returned from England to Hungary to spy against the Central Powers for the British. The exact origin of the rumour is unknown; later it was confirmed that she indeed returned from England to Vienna and starred there in The Beautiful Unknown by Oscar Straus.William Boosey wrote that the London show of The Gipsy Princess with Petráss failed owing to cast selection, despite a "phenomenal run everywhere".

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