HILDEGARD BEHRENS
dramatic soprano

Saddened by her passing, we celebrate her life.
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about Hildegard Behrens, p3

Ms. Behren's other signature roles include Salome, Fidelio, Isolde, Senta, Elektra, and Marie - which she has likewise performed to great critical acclaim in Barcelona, Berlin, Cologne, Dresden, London, Munich, Paris, Salzburg, Trier, Turin, Vienna, Buenos Aires, Houston, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. Indeed, it can be said that most every one of the world's great opera houses has been at one time or another her artistic home. Yet she is not one to sit on her laurels. She continues to essay new roles, such as the woman R in Cronaca del luogo, the opera composed expressly for her voice by the renowned Italian composer Luciano Berio, which opened the 1999 Salzburg Festival; and she welcomed the new millennium with such triumphant performances as: "Hanna Glawari" in Lehar's Die lustige Witwe, "Kundry" in Wagner's Parsifal and the "Kostelnicka" in Janacek's Jenufa. In the 2002- 03 season in Oslo, she sang for the first time the role of "Ortrud" in Wagner's Lohengrin.

It is a tribute to her superb artistry that the legendary conductors - Karl Böhm, Leonard Bernstein, Herbert von Karajan, Rafael Kubelik, Georg Solti - to name those that have passed on, chose to work with her. And it is a testament to her great audience appeal that many of Ms. Behrens' performances have been recorded on video and compact disc, some of which also have been broadcast nationally and internationally. The Metropolitan Opera productions of Idomeneo, Tosca, Elektra, and The Ring Cycle, for example, were broadcast on Public Television in the US.

Ms. Behrens also shines on the recital and concert stage. Here too, her performances are always very warmly received - such as: her Carnegie Hall recital of German Lieder, her gala concert performance at Madrid's Teatro Real which was by all accounts one big lovefest with the Spanish audience, her debut with the Indianapolis Symphony, her season opening night concert with the Boston Symphony, her recitals at the NY Metropolitan Museum's Temple of Dendur, the Kimmel in Philadelphia, in Oldenburg. (Click here for a list of her audio and video recordings, here for her past stage appearances and here for her recent and current performances.)

Opera goers are right to be impressed by Hildegard Behrens' beautiful and powerfully radiant voice. Large without being colossal, it can pierce with delicately nuanced expression through the blaring of trumpets and the swelling of strings - she is after all that rarity known as a Wagnerian soprano. Aided by her highly developed sense of the music drama, it is a voice that is always in character. Thus, be the role that of the warrior Brünnhilde or the temptress Salome or the obsessed Elektra, Ms. Behrens sings and acts the part always with great artistry and remarkable convincingness. And perhaps this is what audiences around the world love most about Ms.Behrens: because she unites great singing with great acting, she makes music truly "worth seeing".
- ©GC/FanFaire 1997-2009


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(See Suggested Reading for more on Ms. Behrens and her Discography for her audio and video recordings.)