Marta Kubišová was the most popular Czechoslovak female singer of the late 1960s, heading for an international career but banned by the communist regime until 1989. Marta spent the next 20 years as a working mother, and also as a brave spokeswoman of the dissident civic movement Charter 77 with her close friend and the future Czech president Václav Havel. Eventually, with the collapse of the Eastern Bloc in late 1989 and in the slipstream of the velvet revolution, her voice returned to stages and recording studios. She sings actively to the present day.