NSNDLê Dung (5 June 1951 in
Hòn Gai,
Quảng Ninh – 29 January 2001 in
Hanoi) was a Vietnamese soprano opera singer. She was a student at the
Tchaikovsky Conservatory and toured and performed widely in Eastern Europe.[1] She won prizes at
Sofia, Bulgaria 1987,
Toulouse 1988 and
Pyongyang. She was a member of the
Hanoi Opera but also sang and recorded the works of
Phú Quang and other popular songwriters. In 1993, she became the youngest ever person to be accredited as
People's Artist ("NSND"), Vietnam's top artistic award for a living artist - second only to the often posthumous
Ho Chi Minh Prize.[2]
^Indochina chronology: Volume 20, Issues 1-2 University of California, Berkeley. Institute of East Asian Studies, Texas Tech University. Vietnam Center - 2001 "Le Dung. Vietnam's famed opera diva died suddenly (30 Jan 2001) of a brain hemorrhage at age 45, only a few days after returning from a three-week tour of the Czech Republic and Poland. Dung was born in Quang Ninh province in 1956, "
^Famous Vietnamese opera singer dies 30 January 2001 "Vietnam's best known opera singer, Le Dung, has died of a stroke at the age of forty-five. She had just returned from a three-week-long European tour when she was taken ill on Friday. Le Dung had won prizes for her work in France, Hungary and North Korea. In 1993, she became the youngest person ever to be awarded Vietnam's top artistic accolade."