Décès de la soprano HILDEGARD BEHRENS
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Décès de la soprano HILDEGARD BEHRENS
Mamie PrimaDonnaAssoluta Jeu 20 Aoû - 14:49
Opera singer Behrens dies in Tokyo
By SHINO YUASA (AP) – 1 day ago
TOKYO — Soprano Hildegard Behrens, one of the finest Wagnerian performers of her generation, has died while traveling in Japan. She was 72.
Jonathan Friend, artistic administrator of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, said Tuesday in an e-mail to opera officials that Behrens felt unwell while traveling to a festival near Tokyo. She went to a Tokyo hospital, where she died of an apparent aneurism.
Friend's e-mail was shared with The Associated Press by Jack Mastroianni, director of IMG Artists.
Her funeral was planned in Vienna.
Organizers for Behrens' visit in Japan said she was in this country to teach lessons in the hot springs resort town of Kusatsu, north of Tokyo, from Aug. 21-29. The lessons were being sponsored by the Kanshinetsu Music Association.
The organizers refused to comment further.
A Web site for the Kusatsu Summer Music Festival said Behrens' performances had been canceled, but gave no further details. It said she was to perform on Aug. 20.
Behrens was among the finest actors on the opera stage during a professional career that spanned more than three decades. She made her professional stage debut in Freiburg as the Countess in Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro" in 1971 and made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Giorgetta in Puccini's "Il Tabarro" in 1976.
One of her breakthrough roles came the following year, when she sang the title role in Strauss' "Salome" at the Salzburg Festival in Austria.
She sang 171 performances at the Met, where she appeared until 1999. Her breakthrough there was as Leonore in Beethoven's "Fidelio" under conductor Karl Boehm in 1980, and she was most acclaimed in the late 1980s and early 1990s for her portrayal of Bruennhilde in the Otto Schenk production of the Ring Cycle, the Met's first televised staging of Wagner's tetralogy.
"She is the finest Bruennhilde of the post-Birgit Nilsson era," Associated Press critic Mike Silverman wrote in 1989. "Though she lacks the overpowering vocal resources of a great Wagnerian soprano, she makes up for that with dramatic intensity as she changes before our eyes from a frisky young Valkyrie to a passionate and then betrayed lover, and finally to a compassionate woman whose sacrifice returns the ring to its rightful owners, the Rhinemaidens."
A dramatic soprano, her Met career include Elettra in Mozart's "Idomeneo," Isolde in Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," Senta in "Die Fliegende Hollander," Donna Anna in Mozart's "Don Giovanni," Santuzza in Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana," the title roles in Strauss' "Elektra" and `Salome," and Puccini's "Tosca," and Marie in Berg's "Wozzeck."
She recorded Isolde in Munich in 1981 with conductor Leonard Bernstein and received praise for her Bruennhilde with conductor Georg Solti at the Bayreuth Festival in 1983. Her "Tosca" at the Met, opposite Placido Domingo's Cavaradossi, is preserved on video along with her Met Ring Cycle.
She was injured during the final scene of Wagner's "Goetterdaemmerung" at the Met on April 28, 1990, when Valhalla collapsed prematurely and an overhead of foam rubber landed on her. Behrens walked off the stage under her own power and was taken to Roosevelt Hospital.
She missed subsequent performances because of the injury, and later sued the Met, according to a 1995 article in The New York Law Journal.
According to Behren's official Web site, she was born in the north German town of Varel-Oldenburg. Her parents were both doctors and she and her five siblings studied piano and violin as children. It said she earned a law degree from the University of Freiburg, where she was also a member of the student choir.
She received Germany's Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of the Merit Cross), Bavaria's Bayerischer Verdienstorden and was honored by both the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and the Vienna State Opera.
Associated Press Writer Ronald Blum contributed from New York.
SOURCE
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gALQ4ey5uFSZvFj3k-8BLMn5GZ7gD9A5NIQ80
SITE
http://www.hildegardbehrens.com/
By SHINO YUASA (AP) – 1 day ago
TOKYO — Soprano Hildegard Behrens, one of the finest Wagnerian performers of her generation, has died while traveling in Japan. She was 72.
Jonathan Friend, artistic administrator of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, said Tuesday in an e-mail to opera officials that Behrens felt unwell while traveling to a festival near Tokyo. She went to a Tokyo hospital, where she died of an apparent aneurism.
Friend's e-mail was shared with The Associated Press by Jack Mastroianni, director of IMG Artists.
Her funeral was planned in Vienna.
Organizers for Behrens' visit in Japan said she was in this country to teach lessons in the hot springs resort town of Kusatsu, north of Tokyo, from Aug. 21-29. The lessons were being sponsored by the Kanshinetsu Music Association.
The organizers refused to comment further.
A Web site for the Kusatsu Summer Music Festival said Behrens' performances had been canceled, but gave no further details. It said she was to perform on Aug. 20.
Behrens was among the finest actors on the opera stage during a professional career that spanned more than three decades. She made her professional stage debut in Freiburg as the Countess in Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro" in 1971 and made her Metropolitan Opera debut as Giorgetta in Puccini's "Il Tabarro" in 1976.
One of her breakthrough roles came the following year, when she sang the title role in Strauss' "Salome" at the Salzburg Festival in Austria.
She sang 171 performances at the Met, where she appeared until 1999. Her breakthrough there was as Leonore in Beethoven's "Fidelio" under conductor Karl Boehm in 1980, and she was most acclaimed in the late 1980s and early 1990s for her portrayal of Bruennhilde in the Otto Schenk production of the Ring Cycle, the Met's first televised staging of Wagner's tetralogy.
"She is the finest Bruennhilde of the post-Birgit Nilsson era," Associated Press critic Mike Silverman wrote in 1989. "Though she lacks the overpowering vocal resources of a great Wagnerian soprano, she makes up for that with dramatic intensity as she changes before our eyes from a frisky young Valkyrie to a passionate and then betrayed lover, and finally to a compassionate woman whose sacrifice returns the ring to its rightful owners, the Rhinemaidens."
A dramatic soprano, her Met career include Elettra in Mozart's "Idomeneo," Isolde in Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde," Senta in "Die Fliegende Hollander," Donna Anna in Mozart's "Don Giovanni," Santuzza in Mascagni's "Cavalleria Rusticana," the title roles in Strauss' "Elektra" and `Salome," and Puccini's "Tosca," and Marie in Berg's "Wozzeck."
She recorded Isolde in Munich in 1981 with conductor Leonard Bernstein and received praise for her Bruennhilde with conductor Georg Solti at the Bayreuth Festival in 1983. Her "Tosca" at the Met, opposite Placido Domingo's Cavaradossi, is preserved on video along with her Met Ring Cycle.
She was injured during the final scene of Wagner's "Goetterdaemmerung" at the Met on April 28, 1990, when Valhalla collapsed prematurely and an overhead of foam rubber landed on her. Behrens walked off the stage under her own power and was taken to Roosevelt Hospital.
She missed subsequent performances because of the injury, and later sued the Met, according to a 1995 article in The New York Law Journal.
According to Behren's official Web site, she was born in the north German town of Varel-Oldenburg. Her parents were both doctors and she and her five siblings studied piano and violin as children. It said she earned a law degree from the University of Freiburg, where she was also a member of the student choir.
She received Germany's Bundesverdienstkreuz (Order of the Merit Cross), Bavaria's Bayerischer Verdienstorden and was honored by both the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and the Vienna State Opera.
Associated Press Writer Ronald Blum contributed from New York.
SOURCE
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gALQ4ey5uFSZvFj3k-8BLMn5GZ7gD9A5NIQ80
SITE
http://www.hildegardbehrens.com/
Mamie PrimaDonnaAssoluta- Admin
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Date d'inscription : 28/12/2008 -
Re: Décès de la soprano HILDEGARD BEHRENS
Mamie PrimaDonnaAssoluta Jeu 20 Aoû - 19:01
Mamie PrimaDonnaAssoluta- Admin
- Messages : 546
Date d'inscription : 28/12/2008 -
Re: Décès de la soprano HILDEGARD BEHRENS
Mamie PrimaDonnaAssoluta Jeu 20 Aoû - 19:01
Mamie PrimaDonnaAssoluta- Admin
- Messages : 546
Date d'inscription : 28/12/2008 -
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