Maria Ivogün

Maria Ivogün was created Ilse Kempner, little girl of the Hungarian army official and a vocalist, Ida von Günther, from whose name she created her nom de théâtre. After her parents divorced, Ivogün’s mom wedded a Swiss and transferred to Zurich, where Maria went to college until her approval on the Imperial Academy of Music in Vienna. Between 1907 and 1913 she examined principally with Amalie Schlemmer-Ambros. Conductor Bruno Walter uncovered her there, so when Munich decided to go with him as Bayerische Generalmusikdirector in 1913, he involved Ivogün. Her initial function was Mimì in La bohème, but that same period she became Munich’s prima coloratura after performing Queen of the night time in The Magic Flute, and continued to be a celebrity of the business until 1925. Under Walter she sang in the globe premieres of Korngold’s Der Band des Polykrates (1916) so that as the child Ighino in Pfitzner’s magnum opus, Palestrina (1917). Despite her additional Munich functions — especially Susanna in The Relationship of Figaro, Konstanze in The Abduction from your Seraglio, Norina in Don Pasquale, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Rosina in The Barber of Seville — Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss’ 1916 revision of Ariadne auf Naxos produced her popular throughout European countries. The composer proclaimed her “exclusive in the part…incomparable,” zero small praise due to the fact Margarethe Siems and Selma Kurz had dazzled the composer aswell as audiences and critics in the work’s two premieres (the 1st in 1912). Opera wasn’t Ivogün’s just musical interest, nevertheless. She demonstrated herself a concert designer of rare superiority in Mahler’s 4th Symphony under Walter, and in hardly ever noticed Mozart concert arias. She wed tenor Karl Erb in 1921, her co-star in Palestrina; after their divorce in 1932, she wedded piano accompanist Michael Raucheisen. Ivogün was involved by Mary Backyard for the Chicago Opera’s catastrophically expensive home time of year of 1921 – 1922, however sang only one time there in The Barber of Seville, although she repeated the part through the company’s post-season in NEW YORK. She produced her Covent Backyard debut in 1924 as Zerbinetta, stealing the limelight from Lotte Lehmann’s Ariadne and Elisabeth Schumann’s Composer. Another week she sang Gilda, which Ernest Newman published was “a perfect good article,” and came back in 1927 as Konstanze in The Abduction, and even more Gildas. In 1925, Ivogün made an appearance as Zerlina in Don Giovanni through the third annual Salzburg Event, which same 12 months became a normal designer at Berlin’s Städtische Oper on Bismarckstrasse (Bruno Walter’s bailiwick until 1929), and later on in the Staatsoper in the Unter den Linden (Erich Kleiber’s kingdom). She required a year’s sabbatical in 1928 following the loss of life of her sister, but came back to Western opera houses as well as the transatlantic concert circuit until her pension from your stage in 1934. Gossips were popular that Ivogün’s eyesight acquired failed, also that she proceeded to go blind. This is published in the 1954 release of Grove’s Dictionary but retracted in the 1955 product, however repeated by many anthologists since. She actually is reported to possess said in early stages “I’ll provide myself twenty years” and do that — retiring with tone of voice and artistry intact. In 1948, she reemerged to instruct in the Vienna Academy of Music, and in 1950 was appointed teacher in the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin. Of her many pupils before she retired in 1956, two specifically became famous world-wide: Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Rita Streich. Ivogün resided to the finish of her 96th yr, lengthy enough to visit a book discussed her artistry by vocal assayer/essayist John Steane, who hailed her as “among the loveliest of all century’s sopranos.”