Elisabeth Rethberg

Through the years between your world wars, Elisabeth Rethberg attained international acclaim on her behalf well-schooled spinto tone of voice, considered by Arturo Toscanini “the most amazing in the world.” Similar ease in both German and Italian repertories produced her invaluable to numerous opera houses during this time period and her scrupulous musicianship and unfailingly wonderful audio brought worshipful viewers to her foot. Despite a particular insufficient dramatic impetus, her shows during the excellent years positioned with the very best. Delivered Lisbeth Sättler, the soprano researched with Otto Watrin on the Dresden Conservatory and produced her professional debut on the Dresden Opera in 1915. The function which released her was that of Arsena in Johann Strauss II’s Zigeunerbaron. In her years at Dresden (up to 1922), Rethberg undertook an array of lyric-dramatic jobs covering a range from Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro, the Empress in Richard Strauss’ Die Frau ohne Schatten, and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier to Tosca. While this wide swath of designs and differing weights of jobs suggested versatility, it could have intended that the home managers simply didn’t know quite how to proceed with their capable youthful soprano. This doubt in regards to a fach (vocal category) the most suitable on her behalf may have added to her early drop. In 1922, she discovered herself on the Salzburg Celebration where she continuing her dizzying accept of jobs with broadly differing demands. For the first time of year, she performed both Countess in Figaro as well as the very much higher-lying Konstanze in Mozart’s Pass away Entführung aus dem Serail (Abduction from your Seraglio). In November 1922, Rethberg produced her debut in the Metropolitan Opera in NY where her Aida brought glowing evaluations and founded her like a Met stalwart for 20 consecutive months. In NY, she concentrated around the spinto repertory, the region most congenial to her device. Other Italian functions there included Cio-Cio-San, Maddalena in Andrea Chénier, Amelia in Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra, Desdemona, Leonora in Il trovatore as well as Rautendelein in Respighi’s La campana sommersa (The Sunken Bell), a rarity led in 1928 by conductor Tullio Serafin. Her German functions included Agathe in Weber’s Der Freischütz, Sieglinde, Elsa, Elisabeth, Eva and an ill-advised Siegfried Brünnhilde past due in her profession. In SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, Rethberg appeared frequently from 1928 until 1940, her functions there including such fairly non-repertory operas as The Bartered Bride-to-be (Marenka) and Halévy’s La Juive (Rachel). Rethberg was an intermittent visitor to Chicago aswell, offering looks in such functions as Cio-Cio-San, Aida, Elsa, the Trovatore Leonora, and Amelia in Ballo in maschera from 1934 to 1941. In the mean time, Rethberg’s engagements in European countries continuing. She was selected by Richard Strauss for the name part in the Dresden premiere of Die Ägyptische Helena in 1928 and in 1929 she produced her debut at La Scala as Aida. In 1929, she sang in La campana sommersa in Rome and in 1930 she undertook the Walküre Brünnhilde (a job certainly overweight on her behalf) in Paris. Various other Italian engagements paralleled her function in America with Covent Backyard where English viewers were happy by her vocal artwork, if not really her dramatic acuity. An appearance as the Marschallin created testimonials praising her beautiful performing but remarking on her behalf inferiority to Lotte Lehmann as an celebrity. By the first ’40s, Rethberg’s tone of voice had dropped noticeably, her Figaro Countess producing for an unmistakably labored near her Metropolitan years.