AN "ELEKTRA-FYING" PERFORMANCE IN PHILADELPHIA

She delicately prefaced each half of the program with the subdued, beautifully sweet melancholic strains of Lieder : Schumanns' Frauen Liebe und Leben in the first and Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder in the second - and then proceeded to the big arias from some of her dramatic, "strong woman" roles: first, the Kostelnicka from Leos Janacek's Jenufa (a recent addition to her still growing operatic repertoire) and Richard Strauss' Elektra , and for the finale, the "Immolation Scene" from Wagner's Götterdämmerung - all delivered with precision, pathos, and "Elektrafying" power.

Below are excerpts from reviews and from articles that preceded her performance - glowing tributes to Ms. Behrens' supreme artistry.


back to top

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HILDEGARD BEHRENS TRIUMPHS AT KIMMEL CENTER
excerpts from the Courier-Post review (12/12/03)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hildegard Behrens ended her Philadelphia recital debut in a blaze of glory. Rounding into the final phrases of Brunnhilde's Immolation Scene, the veteran soprano unleashed a wave of sound that soared through Perelman Theater.

The glory of Behrens' voice has always been the powerful high register that pierces the air like a brazen blast from a trumpet. She launched Schumann's song cycle Frauenliebe und Leben (A Woman's Life and Love) and conveyed the emotions in the music through the way she shaded her voice and projected the words.. Behrens capped the first half of the program with big scenes from operas by Janacek and Strauss. Wrapping a stole around her body, the soprano gave dramatic accounts of the Kostelnicka's aria from Jenufa and the monologue from Elektra.

Striking form, Behrens charged the music with electrifying drama. The audience cheered.

After intermission, Behrens concentrated on Wagner. Artfully accompanied by Noda, she crafted thoughtful interpretations of Wagner's Wesendonck Songs. Her singing was richly nuanced.

Then came Brunnhilde's long Immolation Scene. Noda created a symphony of sound over which the soprano's voice soared. Reveling in the moment, Behrens projected the music with power and control.

After a career of almost 40 years, Behrens can still galvanize an audience to a storm of applause. She accepted the cheers with a happy smile and a graceful sweep of her arms. - Robert Baxter

------------------------------------------------------------------------
'...GRANDLY QUIET AND CRAZY'
excerpts from the Philadelphia Inquirer review (12/13/03)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you're a great diva and you want to sing about the small matter of gods going up in flames, you can't just step out on stage and start cold. You have to build to the idea, maybe warming up with a little infanticide and some free-floating insanity.

That Hildegard Behrens was able to convey any of those ideas so fully, outside of their operatic context and without benefit of a full orchestra, is a sure sign of an extraordinary power to transport listeners to another realm. In her recital Thursday night at the Perelman Theater with pianist Ken Noda, the soprano interspersed arias of increasing levels of unhingedness with quieter songs of Schumann and Wagner.

It was a program that made anyone in the audience who had never had a nervous breakdown feel underdressed for the occasion. But it all worked, and the reason it worked had totally to do with the personality. Aside from a general mystique about the Wagnerian, who has an admirable track record with maestros Karajan, Levine and Ozawa, Behrens has that ineffable glow of greatness that floats around her. She is one of those performers who make it impossible to look away, to lose attention for even a second.

...Behrens knows her instrument's strengths and how to deploy them smartly. She still has enormous power. She sent some notes out into the 650-seat hall like well-placed missiles.

In "Elektra's Monologue," the long excerpt from Strauss' Elektra in which the world's most emotionally tortured soul sings about baths of blood and fumes of blood and the steam of blood,... you could hear things in Behrens' voice that might have been lost in the Metropolitan Opera house: her bass-clarinet lower register, high notes that materialized with the sudden power of a trumpet. - Peter Dobrin

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOR A CELEBRATED SOPRANO
age is no excuse to take the easy path

excerpts from an insightful interview (Philadelphia Inquirer 12/11/03)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This diva isn't going quietly. And maybe not at all.

...Hildegard Behrens arrives at the Kimmel Center's Perelman Theater tonight with a recital that could peel paint off walls.

You'd expect the Metropolitan Opera's most celebrated Wagnerian soprano of the 1980s to sing that composer's lovely Wesendonck Lieder and Schumann's life-cycle saga, Frauenliebe und Leben, as she will tonight. But she's also performing scenes from Strauss' hyperdramatic Elektra and Janacek's Jenufa, plus what the Guinness Book of World Records claims is the longest-ever opera aria, the Immolation Scene from Götterdämmerung.No singer... would take on such a heavy program. Is she mad? No, she's a Valkyrie, a real-life one who has battled for and against the great conductors and stage directors of the 20th century - often while playing Wagner's female warrior in the 16-hour Ring Cycle - and wants to continue with character roles into her 80s.

"I'm a long-distance singer. The longer, the better," she said one recent afternoon at New York's Café des Artistes....

With such a program, you'd think she had something to prove. Quietly, firmly she states that this is about her love of singing.... Behrens continues to take on new repertoire - the title role of The Merry Widowin Munich and Ortrud in Lohengrin in Oslo - and her Web site (www.ffaire.com/behrens) has impressive, recently shot video footage of her singing Elektra.

This urgent need for longevity... reflected in her lack of retirement plans... a tendency never to shrink away from the nearly impossible.

Thanks to her warmth and vulnerability (qualities rarely found in a heroic voice), you don't so much forgive her lapses as live them with her - and applaud her triumphs as if she were family.

In her decades before the public, her integrity has never been questioned. An anecdote she tells about formidable conductor Georg Solti clearly reveals her artistic priorities: "We were in Chicago recording Fidelio and were on the elevator together. And I started sweating. He said, 'Hildegard, don't be afraid of me!' And I said, 'Maestro, I'm not afraid of you. I'm afraid of Beethoven!' " - David Patrick Stearns

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bring on the divas
excerpts from an aritcle in the Courier-Post (12/07/03)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Popular culture has debased the term once reserved for flamboyant opera stars such as Callas. Pop singers...are routinely and mistakenly called divas.

Real divas, such as Fleming and Behrens, do not use microphones. They project their voices and their personalities into huge halls without a sound technician boosting the volume. And they don't need light shows or explosive scenic effects to entertain an audience.

The operatic diva is glamorous, temperamental and larger than life. And she commands a voice that can dominate an orchestra of 100 musicians and reduce an audience to a frenzy.

"The operatic diva has a special quality that sets her apart from other performers," notes Anthony Checchia, the director of the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, which is sponsoring Behrens' recital in Perelman Theater.

"The word diva is overused today," notes Checchia. "Real ones like Hildegard Behrens are electrifying in their impact."

Behrens reigned as prima donna for more than a decade at the Met..... Behrens' steely dramatic soprano destined her for the Wagner and Strauss repertory that made her a star in Munich, Vienna and Paris as well as New York.

Behrens commands the stage with her magnetic presence. Her long, graceful arms and tall, lithe figure embody the heroic roles that are her specialty.

With her dramatic style, she made her mark on the opera stage, not in recitals. But Noda recalls a recital he performed with Behrens three years ago in the Temple of Dendur at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"It was an unforgettable night," recalls the pianist who serves as musical assistant to James Levine at the Met. Critics wrote that Behrens showed why she has been called "the goddess of opera."

Behrens sings three challenging operatic scenes in her Dec. 11 recital: Kostelnicka's aria from the second act of Janacek's Jenufa, Elektra's Monologue and Brunnhilde's Immolation Scene from Wagner's Götterdaämmerung.

"She's a wonderful artist... Philadelphia deserves to experience a singer like this."

- Robert Baxter