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Disc 1- Excerpts from operas by Richard Wagner:       "Dich, teure Halle" from Tannhäuser    "Allmächt'ge Jungfrau" from Tannhäuser    "Jojohoe" from Der fliegende Holländer    "Einsam in trüben Tagen" from Lohengrin    "Euch Lüften, die mein Klagen" from Lohengrin    "Mild und Leise" from Tristan und Isolde    "Der Männer sippe" from Die Walküre    "Hojotoho" from Die Walküre    "from Starke Scheite... " from Götterdämmerung Disc 2 - Lieder and Excerpts from Salome andGuercouer:
"Seit ich ihn gesehen" from Schumann's Frauenliebe und Leben    "Bist du bei mir" attrib. Bach    "Wiegenlied" by Brahms    "Die Nacht" by  R. Strauss    "Wiegenlied" by R. Strauss    "Die Nachtigall " by Berg    "Bien, mon fils!" from Guercouer by Magnard    "Jochanan, ich bin Verliebt" from Salome by R. Strauss     from "Ah! Du woltest mich nicht deinen Mund küssen lassen, Jochanan!" from               Salome by R. Strauss

FanFaire officially began its celebration of music about 10 and 1/2 years ago with a tribute to its first featured artist, the legendary HILDEGARD BEHRENS. It was in the year that the soprano starred in the Metropolitan Opera's spectacular production of Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, presented in its entirety within the span of one week for the first time since the 1938-39 season.  [CLICK HERE to view FanFaire's MET RING pages and HERE to view the WAGNER pages]

Celebrated as the "Brünnhilde of our time," Ms. Behrens debuted the role at the 1983 Bayreuth Festival.  [CLICK PLAY BUTTON below for some photos of her Bayreuth performance as featured in Connoisseur Magazine (12/83) and HERE for a 360° view of the helmet she wore as Brünnhilde, the armored warrior-maiden of myth.]

Her many portrayals of Brünnhilde—as well as other heroines of Wagner's operas—in the world's major opera houses affirmed her status as one of the world's great Wagnerian sopranos, her inimitably riveting interpretations universally acclaimed for both their intense dramatic power and exquisitely nuanced subtlety. As the headliner to the original recording from which the Wagner selections in the current album were taken proclaimed without equivocation, HILDEGARD BEHRENS brought "a new dimension to Wagner-singing." [CLICK HERE for more on Ms. Behrens' Brünnhilde]

But as this album makes clear, it was not only as a Wagnerian that Ms. Behrens made her mark as an artist.

In fact, it was as Beethoven's only operatic heroine (FIDELIO/Leonore) that Ms. Behrens burst into the international scene, and it was her unsurpassed portrayal of RICHARD STRAUSS' SALOME at the Salzburg Festival, directed by the legendary conductor HERBERT VON KARAJAN that catapulted her early in her career to opera heaven.  Salome instantly became a signature role, performed on numerous occasions in Europe and America. Two excerpts from this opera, recorded on the eve of her fabled Salzburg performances, comprise the finale of the present collection; as the liner notes state, they confirm her status as "an opera star of the highest magnitude." [CLICK PLAY BUTTON below to view a brief slide show of photos from the Salzburg Festival and Royal Opera House/Covent Garden productions.]

But it is the respected British opera connoisseur ALAN BLYTH who puts it best, in words that underscore the fact that her very best number much more than the pieces that make up this album and that we who hold her in the greatest esteem could only wish we had spoken:

"No one who has seen and heard, as I have, HILDEGARD BEHRENS as Leonore (Fidelio), Senta, Isolde, Brünnhilde, Salome, Elektra, Marie (Wozzeck) and Katya Kabanova is likely to forget the experience.  Such is her ability to communicate with voice, body and intellect, that every role she tackles becomes an emotional experience of overwhelming force.  All that the singer seems instinctively to feel in the libretto and music is conveyed to you directly, immediately.  Few artists in any area have that gift: Behrens has it in spades."

[CLICK HERE to view MS. BEHRENS' SALOME, FIDELIO, ELEKTRA, ISOLDE, and WOZZECK pages.]

The album also features Lieder that include Schumann's complete song-cycle Frauenliebe und Leben¹ and some of the other songs from Ms. Behrens "Premier Recital" disc, a recording of her first Carnegie Hall recital.  The one piece that is somewhat of a departure from the rest of the album is the French aria "Bien, mon fils," taken from the final act of the opera Guercouer written by Alberic Magnard, an undeservedly neglected turn-of-the-20th century French composer.  The piece is excerpted from what to date appears to be only one of two complete recordings of the deeply allegorical and rather Wagnerian work in which Ms. Behrens sings the part of Verité or Truth, with Michel Plasson conducting the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse.

These days, as a new generation of singers begin to take on the great soprano roles in the dramatic repertoire that became her signature and for which she has set the highest artistic standards,² Ms. Behrens - never one to rest on her laurels - continues to expand her horizon while exploring new repertoire, as she has always done throughout her career. In the most recent of our continuing conversations, she shared some of these explorations - "an exciting journey through various dimensions of time and space" as she put it, which she so generously transcribed herself in the form of a letter to her "Dear Friends at FanFaire." [To read, CLICK HERE.]

What a joyful gift, one that fills our hearts with hope as we strive to continue into the next decade FanFaire's celebration of all that is good and beautiful in music.  And one that gives us occasion to pay tribute yet again to HILDEGARD BEHRENS -  consummate artist, free spirit, and most magnanimous soul!
- GJC / © 2008 FanFaire

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It was also at about the same time that Ms. Behrens agreed to a videotaped session in which she fondly and good-humoredly recalled her memories of the legendary LUCIANO PAVAROTTI, beloved tenor of our times who had just succumbed to a lingering illness, and on whose giant shoulders today's generation of promising young tenors stand.
[CLICK HERE to watch VIDEO CLIPS.]