While on the Island of Capri in Italy filming Die singende Stadt (1930) and Farewell to Love (1931), Viragh ate some shellfish from the polluted nearby Bay of Naples and contracted typhoid. He died a few days later in a Naples hospital.
When he returned from France to Hungary he entered the film business in 1915 as a chief cinematographer.
The City of Song" (31) remained his only sound film. During the shooting Arpad Viragh died on Capri as a consequence of a poisoning he contracted by consuming shellfishes condemned to be unfit for consumption.
In 1929 he went to England where his last movies as a cinematographer came into being, among them "Mr. Smith Wakes Up" (1929), "The Unwritten Law" (1929), "Die singende Stadt" (1930) and the English version of it "City of Song" (1931).
The cinematographer Arpád Virágh learnt like many early cinematographers the profession of a photographer.
He made first cinematical experiences for Pathé in Paris where he was working from 1910 to 1912.
Because of the political problems in Hungary he fled to Germany in 1919 where he was able to continue his film career.