Frida Leider

Dramatic soprano Frida Leider was regarded by many colleagues, critics, and opera enthusiasts as the best possible Wagnerian soprano through the interwar years. She was adored not merely for a robust voice of substantial beauty and versatility, also for her creative integrity and histrionic presents that likened favorably with those of the best possible stage stars. She had noticed Eleanora Duse on stage and have been impressed using the famous Italian celebrity’ power and overall economy of gesture. Similarly, the musical humor celebrity Fritzi Massary demonstrated an long lasting icon on her behalf poise and focus. Leider’s profession revolved around Berlin, the town of her delivery and early teaching (she also analyzed in Milan). Her debut in 1915 as Venus in Tannhäconsumer occurred in Halle and initiated her close recognition using the music of Wagner. Later on that same 12 months, she undertook her 1st Brünnhilde in Nuremberg. Engagements in Rostock (1916 – 1918), Königsberg for another two months and Hamburg (1920 – 1923) resulted in her engagement as primary dramatic soprano in the Berlin Staatsoper from 1923 to 1939. Leider mentioned on several events that, unlike a great many other large-voiced sopranos, she didn’t start out with the lyric repertory; rather, she wielded a complete dramatic device from the starting. Nor was her repertory limited to functions in the German repertory. Among her wide-ranging functions had been Verdi’s Aida, Amelia (El ballo in Maschera), Leonora (Il trovatore), the Countess in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Donna Anna in Don Giovanni, Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana, Didon in Berlioz’s Les troyens, Valentine in Meyerbeer’s Les Huguenots as well as the Marschallin in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier. Leider’s worldwide career blossomed through the 1920s, holding her to London’s Covent Backyard in 1924, Chicago in 1928, as well as the Bayreuth Celebration that same season. Through the 1930s, she performed at Milan’s La Scala, the Paris Opéra, as well as the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. She sang two periods on the Metropolitan Opera in NY from 1933. She continued to be there until Kirsten Flagstad burst upon the picture in 1935. Wedded to Rudolf Deman, a Jewish musician as soon as leader from the Berlin Staatsoper orchestra, Leider discovered her profession in her indigenous Germany noticeably reduced in the years following the Country wide Socialists found power. Her most fulfilling performances occurred in London and Chicago where she discovered devoted supporters and congenial functioning conditions. Her very own fondest memories had been from the Chicago Opera, where she was shown in several jobs outside aswell as within her mainstay Wagnerian repertory. Her Donna Anna was noticed in 1928 opposing Vanni-Marcoux’s Don Giovanni and Alexander Kipnis’ Leporello. The same season, Chicago first came across her aristocratic and sumptuously sung Marschallin. Leonore in Fidelio emerged in January 1930 and in November 1931, Leider sang the name role of Utmost von Schilling’s post-romantic Mona Lisa. Impressions from the opera had been blended, but Leider’s efficiency was reputable. While Leider’s capability to dominate the stage continued to be undiminished, the past due 1930s brought raising evidence of stress in the higher-lying passages of such jobs as the Siegfried and Götterdämmerung Brünnhildes. With the development of WWII, Leider experienced essentially retired, carrying out just in recital. Following a war’s end, Leider limited herself to opera creation and teaching. While Leider isn’t represented on disk by actually one complete part, her many recordings of opera excerpts testify to an excellent singer, her shiny, expressive tone of voice ever in the command of the penetrating intellect.