PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST…

…as HILDEGARD BEHRENS

Germany’s historic National Theater unveiled on October 16, 2024 its new collection of twenty-one portraits of the country’s greatest artists of the last 50 years, led by the legendary Hildegard Behrens who was a recipient of Germany’s highest civilian honors, Bundesverdienstkreuz, (Order of Merit of the Federal Republic). The portraits are on display in the lobby of the Bayerische Staatsoper (Bavarian State Opera ) in Munich, the setting of many of the great soprano’s legendary performances from the late 1970s to the 1990s - in such roles as Fidelio, Salome, Brünnhilde, Elektra, Isolde, Rusalka, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and Emilia Marty - for which she received the state of Bavaria’s highest honor, Bayerischer Verdienstorden, (Bavarian Order of Merit) and the State Opera’s most esteemed title of Bayerische Kammersängerin.

Other noteworthy subjects of the portraits include Fritz Wunderlich, Lucia Popp, Hermann Prey, Astrid Varnay, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Margaret Price, René Kollo, Kurt Moll, Brigitte Fassbaender, Julia Varady, Edita Gruberová, and Waltraud Meier.

Ms. Behrens’ portrait is by the artist Andy Hope.