Rády, aged 42, hung herself in her home in Bordeaux. According to police sources, Bertrand Cantat was asleep in the house at the time. Rády's body was discovered by one of her children.
Rády met Cantat in Budapest in 1993. Their marriage produced two children: Milo in 1997 and Alice in 2002. The pair was divorced shortly after the birth of their daughter, when Cantat started a relationship with the French actress Marie Trintignant.
Rády was thrust into the centre of the French media in 2004, when her ex-husband was sentenced to eight years in prison in a court in Vilnius for causing the death of Trintignant in a fight. Rády was a witness for Cantat in the court case and supported him during his time in prison.
Cantat was released early for good behaviour in 2007.
Rády was the artistic director for the Paris Hungarian Institute between 1996 and 1999, and she was in charge of the musical programme during the Hungarian Cultural Season in France in 2001. In recent years, she organised French programmes for the Sziget Festival, Hungary's biggest summer musical event, together with Robert Lacombe. Thanks to their efforts, more and more French festival-goers have come to Budapest in August.
A Coeur pur (With Pure Heart), a literary and musical performance based on the poetry of the Hungarian Attila József was Rády's brainchild. She chose the poems, translated them and brought the production to the stage, with the actor Denis Lavant and Noir Désir guitarist Serge Teyssot-Gay, as well as Zsolt Nagy, a member of Hungary's Krétakör troupe. The production has been performed in cities all over France and a book and CD of the piece were published in 2008 by Seuil.
András Ecsedi-Derdák and Bálint András Kovács, the current director of the Paris Hungarian Institute and his predecessor, respectively, praised Rády's "tireless work, thanks to which Hungarian cultural programmes were freed from the confines of the institute's building". Rády brought the folk-inspired improvisations of Félix Lajkó to Paris and it was here idea to dock a boat in the Seine that would provide a venue for Hungarian programmes. The success of the boat idea was the basis for the A38 ship docked in the Danube in Budapest, they said.
Ecsedi-Derdák said Rády was full of plans. "It's unbelievable what happened. We exchanged emails just yesterday," he said.
Source: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
