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Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Dame Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike Schwarzkopf, DBE (9 December 1915 – 3 August 2006) was a German-born Austro-British lyric soprano. She was among the foremost singers of lieder, and is renowned for her performances of Viennese operetta, as well as the operas of Mozart, Wagner and Richard Strauss.[1][2] After retiring from the stage, she was a voice teacher internationally. She is considered one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th century.[3]

Dame
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
DBE

Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike Schwarzkopf

(1915-12-09)9 December 1915
Jarotschin, Kingdom of Prussia, German Empire (now Poland)

3 August 2006(2006-08-03) (aged 90)

Schruns, Vorarlberg, Austria
  • Germany
  • Austria
  • United Kingdom

  • Classical soprano
  • Voice teacher

Early life[edit]

Schwarzkopf was born on 9 December 1915 in Jarotschin in the Province of Posen in Prussia, Germany (now Poland) to Friedrich Schwarzkopf and his wife, Elisabeth (née Fröhlich). Schwarzkopf performed in her first opera in 1928, as Eurydice in a school production of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice in Magdeburg, Germany. In 1934, Schwarzkopf began her musical studies at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where her singing tutor, Lula Mysz-Gmeiner, attempted to train her to be a mezzo-soprano. Schwarzkopf later trained under Maria Ivogün, and in 1938 joined the Deutsche Oper.[4]

Legacy[edit]

Her discography is considerable both in quality and in quantity and is distinguished for her Mozart and Richard Strauss operatic portrayals, her two commercial recordings of Strauss's Four Last Songs and her recordings of lieder, especially those of Wolf.


Schwarzkopf is generally considered to have been the greatest German lyric soprano of the twentieth century and one of the finest Mozart singers of all time with an "indescribably beautiful" voice.[19]


Schwarzkopf's entry in The Grove Book of Opera Singers concludes: "Although she dismissed her [Nazi Party] membership as a professional necessity, her reputation has remained tarnished by what seems to have been an active party membership."[1]

1950: , Mozarteum International Foundation, Salzburg

Lilli Lehmann Medal

1959: 1. "Orfeo d'Oro", Mantua (?)

1969: Orphée d'or recording award from the Académie du disque lyrique in Paris

1961: , Amsterdam

Edison Award

1961: Awarded the title Deutsche

Kammersängerin

1964: Honorary member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Music

1967: Stockholm television award for best European soprano Stockholmer

1971: Hugo-Wolf Medal

1974: Grand Cross of the

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany

1982: Mozart Medal of the city of am Main

Frankfurt

1983: Honorary member of the and title of Kammersängerin

Vienna State Opera

1986: Commandeur de l'

Ordre des Arts et des Lettres

1991:

UNESCO Mozart Medal

1992: Dame Commander of the for services to music

Order of the British Empire

2002:

Honorary Medal of the City of Vienna

2012: Voted into [20]

Gramophone Hall of Fame

(After being asked about ) "There are names I do not want mentioned in my home. Do not say that name in my presence. I have seen what he has done, and it is criminal. As my husband used to say, so far no one has dared go into the Louvre Museum to spray graffiti on the Mona Lisa, but some opera directors are spraying graffiti over masterpieces." – Newsweek interview, 15 October 1990

Peter Sellars

"Many composers today don't know what the human throat is. At , I was invited to listen to music written in quarter tones for four harps and voices. I had to go out to be sick." – Newsweek interview, 15 October 1990

Bloomington, Indiana

(Asked in 1995 if she would sing in the cultural climate of the 1990s if she were much younger) "It's a kind of prostitution now. There is nobody I envy. There's a disintegration of integrity in our profession."

[21]

Recital at Carnegie Hall (1956), in "Great Performances of the Century", 1989[22]

EMI

Bach


Brahms


Humperdinck


Lehár


Mozart


Puccini


Johann Strauss II


Richard Strauss


Verdi


Richard Wagner

Schwarzkopf Seefried Fischer-Dieskau, a black-and-white DVD of these three singers. Schwarzkopf performs the Act I Finale from Der Rosenkavalier, from a performance filmed in London, 1961. Published by Warner Classics, Catalog number DVB 4904429.

, a color videotape/DVD of a full length performance conducted by Herbert von Karajan with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra from the 1961 Salzburg Festival, featuring Sena Jurinac, Anneliese Rothenberger, Otto Edelmann and Erich Kunz; film directed by Paul Czinner. Published by KULTUR. ASIN: B0043988GM.

Der Rosenkavalier: the Film

She can be seen in two videotaped performances as the Marschallin:

Jefferson, Alan Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Northeastern University Press (August 1996)  1-55553-272-1 Chapter One extract

ISBN

; postscript by Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth; ed. Sanders, Alan Walter Legge: Words and Music Routledge (1998) ISBN 0-415-92108-2

Legge, Walter

Liese, Kirsten, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. From Flower Maiden To Marschallin. English translation: Charles Scribner. Molden, Vienna 2007.  978-3-85485-218-6; Amadeus Press, New York, 2009. ISBN 978-1-57467-175-9

ISBN

Sanders, Alan The Schwarzkopf Tapes: An artist replies to a hostile biography, Classical Recordings Quarterly and The Elisabeth Schwarzkopf/Walter Legge Society, (2010)  978-0-9567361-0-9

ISBN

Sanders, Alan and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf: A Career on Record, Amadeus Press (January 1996) ISBN 0-931340-99-3

Steane, John B.

Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth Les autres soirs Tallandier (August 16, 2004)  2-84734-068-8

ISBN

Schwarzkopf, Elisabeth On and Off the Record: A Memoir of Walter Legge Faber and Faber (December 31, 1982)  0-571-11928-X; Scribner (March 1982) ISBN 0-684-17451-0; (paperback) ISBN 0-571-14912-X; University of British Columbia Press (January 1, 2002) ISBN 1-55553-519-4

ISBN

Bach Cantatas biography

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Museum in Hohenems/Austria

BBC

Obituary: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

(Alan Blyth) Obituary: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

The Guardian

Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (obituary)

The Times

Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (obituary)

The Daily Telegraph

(Adam Bernstein) Renowned Coloratura Soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, 90 (obituary)

The Washington Post

The Washington Post (Tim Page) (appreciation)

The Plaintive Last Song of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

: Schwarzkopf's Career Had Somber Side

Norman Lebrecht

BBC

Soprano Schwarzkopf dies aged 90

BBC

Diva's 'place in history assured'

The Guardian (Charlotte Higgins)

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf dies at 90

at IMDb

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

(scroll down)

Prewar photo of Schwarzkopf as Zerbinetta

warnerclassics.com

Discography

from sopranos.freeservers.com

Discography

(Capon's Lists of Opera Recordings)

Another Discography