- She maintained long associations with the Frankfurt Opera and the San Francisco Opera, and was on the roster of singers at the National Theatre in Prague.
- Cervená starred as Emilia Marty in Karel Capek's play The Makropulos Case, directed by Robert Wilson, at the National Theatre in Prague from the production's debut in November 2010.
- After a nine-year absence, Cervená returned to San Francisco in 1980 to portray Countess Waldner in Arabella, Flora in La traviata, Mamma Lucia in Cavalleria Rusticana, and Starenka Buryjovka in Jenufa.
- Cervená studied voice with Robert Rozner and Lydia Wegner-Salmowá in her home city before beginning her career performing with an operetta ensemble in Prague.
- Her mother died in a Communist jail in 1948, the year of a Communist coup-d'etat in Czechoslovakia. Cervená learned about her mother's death and with the help of a pathologist recovered her mother's body to secretly bury her in her family grave in Prague.
- She was the daughter of Czech writer Jirí Cerveny and the great granddaughter of brass instrument maker Václav Cerveny.
- In 1962, Cervená made her United States debut at the San Francisco Opera in the title role of Georges Bizet's Carmen.
- She made her professional opera début in 1954 at the opera house in Brno where she remained for the next three years.
- In 2004, Cervená was honored with a Thalia Award.
- She also made several guest appearances at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Hamburg State Opera, Semperoper, and the Vienna State Opera.
- Her father and mother, Zofie Veseliková, were both imprisoned by Nazis during WWII.
- Cervená had a major success at the National Theatre in Prague as Octavian in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier in 1957.
- Sona Cervená was a Czech operatic mezzo-soprano who had an active international career since the 1950s.
- Cervená made several appearances at the Bayreuth Festival, including Floßhilde in The Ring Cycle (1960), Rossweisse (1966-67), and a Flower Maiden in Parsifal (1962-63 and 1966-67).
- She portrayed Clairon at the 1963 and 1964 Glyndebourne Festivals.
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