Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Soprano who made her operatic debut at age eight as Gretel, then joined the Aachen Opera under Karajan, and later moved to Vienna.
On the island
Eight records
Not explicitly stated in transcript (disc not discussed in this extract).
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:08Were you brought up to hear a lot of music as a child?
Yeah, since I really uh since I really can think. Music was always round me. My father was a marvelous man. He was a he he had a marvelous uh voice himself, very beautiful tenor, uh but uh his parents uh didn't like for him to be a singer. So he was brought up as a he was a schoolmaster.
Presenter asks
0:38Do you remember your very first appearance in front of an audience?
Yes, well I have done it already when I have been five years against the big chorus. [...] I sang it already, but I can't remember what it was. I think it was a very big thing. Uh it was quite uh something for me to sing against this chorus, but I think I came quite nicely through. And then three years later I sang the first opera already. I mean I have been eight years, I sang the Gretel in in Henslung Gretelof by Humpertink.
Presenter asks
1:59It [Aachen] must have got a bit noisier there in the spring of nineteen forty.
It was a very hard time I would say so you see when you are a young girl coming there all by yourself without anybody around you and we had to sing nearly every day and so during the night there was the bombing, it was not so easy for us, you see.
The keepsakes
The luxury
Presenter asks
2:56Before the end of the war the Vienna Opera House was destroyed, wasn't it?
Yes, I was there. [...] we went every day to the opera house just like a family being together. [...] The opera house was bombed, you see, and I was there, I was fighting against the fire. All the company tried to save the opera house. Yes, it was very sad for us, you see.
Presenter asks
3:44How long was it before the company could start singing together again?
Well, we only took us only fourteen days, you see. [...] We started already the war was for us over in the middle of April. And we started already at the beginning of May with Marriage of Figaro again. That was the only production. [...] we had no house anymore, so we had we went to the Volks Opera, which is the second house in Vienna, it's the second opera house. And uh there we started again and uh there we sang twenty-eight times only marriage of figure in one month.
Presenter asks
5:07Would you say that opera is still a major part of your life?
No. [...] No, you're still a permanent member of the Vienna Company? Yes, that's the only company I I I'm always since I w since forty-three I'm with this company.
“Yeah, since I really uh since I really can think. Music was always round me. My father was a marvelous man. He was a he he had a marvelous uh voice himself, very beautiful tenor, uh but uh his parents uh didn't like for him to be a singer. So he was brought up as a he was a schoolmaster.”
“It was a very hard time I would say so you see when you are a young girl coming there all by yourself without anybody around you and we had to sing nearly every day and so during the night there was the bombing, it was not so easy for us, you see.”
“The opera house was bombed, you see, and I was there, I was fighting against the fire. All the company tried to save the opera house. Yes, it was very sad for us, you see.”
“We started already the war was for us over in the middle of April. And we started already at the beginning of May with Marriage of Figaro again. That was the only production. [...] we sang twenty-eight times only marriage of figure in one month.”
“I got my real, I would say the real deep musician feeling from him.”