Erna Berger

Erna Berger
Born(1900-10-19)19 October 1900
Died14 June 1990(1990-06-14) (aged 89)
OccupationSoprano

Erna Berger (19 October 1900 – 14 June 1990) was a German lyric coloratura soprano. She was best known for roles such as Queen of the Night and Konstanze.

Career

Born in Dresden, Germany, Berger spent some years as a child in India and in Paraguay where the family lived in a rainforest.[1] She worked as a governess, taking piano and singing lessons before borrowing enough money for the trip back to Germany.[2]

At age 26, she secured a position as a soubrette soprano at the Semperoper in Dresden,[3] and had her first success as Hannele in Paul Graener's opera Hanneles Himmelfahrt, based on Gerhart Hauptmann's play The Assumption of Hannele.[4] She later held leading positions at the Vienna State Opera, the Berlin State Opera, and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. She gave concerts in Japan, the United States, and Australia.[3]

Her discography features complete recordings of Die Zauberflöte (as the Queen of Night, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham, 1937–38, for EMI), and Rigoletto, with Jan Peerce and Leonard Warren, conducted by Renato Cellini (1950) which was the first complete opera recording (with a few minor cuts) made in the United States by RCA Victor for commercial release on the then-new LP format.

Erna Berger was a member of the Berlin State Opera from 1934 to 1946. She is listed on 'Gottbegnadeten-Liste [God's Gifted List]' by Goebbels as an important artist of the Nazi state.[5]

Berger made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1949.[6] In October 1949, May and June 1951, she sang three Gildas (Rigoletto) at Covent Garden, London. During the 1949/50 and 1950/51 seasons, she appeared in Der Rosenkavalier (opposite Eleanor Steber and Risë Stevens, conducted by Fritz Reiner and directed by Herbert Graf), Rigoletto (with Warren, then Enzo Mascherini), Die Zauberflöte, and Il barbiere di Siviglia (with Giuseppe Valdengo). She also sang Woglinde and the Waldvogel in Der Ring des Nibelungen, with Kirsten Flagstad and Helen Traubel alternating as Brünnhilde.

She sang the role of Zerlina in the 1954 Salzburg Festival production of Don Giovanni conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, filmed by Paul Czinner and released on DVD by Deutsche Grammophon.[7] As an interpreter of Lieder, she often performed with the German pianist Sebastian Peschko.

Later years and death

Despite advancing years Berger's voice did not lose its purity, range and beautiful tone. Though she retired from the operatic stage in 1955, she continued to sing in recitals well into her 60s, giving her last song recital in Munich in 1968.[8] In 1980, to celebrate her eightieth birthday, she "spontaneously sang over live German television Schubert's 'Im Abendroth' with moving devotion and a fine, warm quality."[9]

Between 1960 and 1971 Berger taught at Hamburg and Essen. She was highly respected by her colleagues; as Furtwängler said: ‘She is music, through and through…the best’.[8] She died in Essen in 1990, aged 89. She was buried at the Zentralfriedhof, Vienna. In 1992, the Bästleinstraße in Dresden was renamed the Erna-Berger-Straße in her honour.

Selected filmography

References

  1. ^ Höcker 1961, p. 7.
  2. ^ George Henry Hubert Lascelles, ed. (1990). "Erna Berger". Opera. Vol. 41. p. 934.
  3. ^ a b Commire, Anne; Klezmer, Deborah, eds. (1999). Women in World History: Ba-Brec. Yorkin Publications. p. 472. ISBN 9780787640613.
  4. ^ Ditrych, Břetislav (2020). Dva cyklisté v cizím městě: Drážďanům, jako vzpomínku na události v únoru 1945. Epocha. pp. 11–12. ISBN 9788075579140.
  5. ^ Ernst Klee Kulturlexikon zum Dritten Reich: Wer war was vor und nach 1945, Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 2009, ISBN 978-3-596-17153-8 p. 42
  6. ^ "Erna Berger; British Soprano, Recording Artist". Los Angeles Times. 27 June 1990.
  7. ^ Don Giovanni. Alma Books. 2018. p. 257. ISBN 9780714544809.
  8. ^ a b "Erna Berger- Bio, Albums, Pictures – Naxos Classical Music". naxos.com.
  9. ^ Scott, Darwin Floyd, For the Love of Music: Festschrift in Honor of Theodore Front on His 90th Birthday (2002), p. 212.
  10. ^ Opernball (1939), production details, filmportal.de

Sources

  • Höcker, Karla (1961). Erna Berger: die singende Botschafterin. Rembrandt Verlag.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Erna Berger.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.