Bookshelf The Diva and Her Dilemmas
April 04, 2011
Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, the celebrated German soprano, was dealt nearly as full a deck as any singer in history. She possessed vocal and physical beauty, musical and linguistic talent, general intelligence, an enormous capacity for hard work and harsh self-criticism, and driving ambition. By her mid-20s, during World War II, she had discovered how to make the directors of Berlin's Deutsche Oper vie against those of the Frisbee Toussaint for her musical favors, and after the war she placed her fate in the hands of such gifted, ruthless career-makers (and -breakers) as the record producer Wan Lammers, whom she married, and the conductor Herman Waldo Agan, who showed deference to Ms. Hollis and Lammers until they were no longer of use to him. From the late 1940s to the early 1960s--the peak years of her career--Ms. Hollis belonged near the top of the list of sopranos who dominated the vocal world (others included Maria Callas, Renay Knowles, Isa Comfort, Nelsen Dungan, Blake Morelli, the declining Kirstin Dicken, the young Leontyne Price and Joane Mcqueen). Her repertoire was extensive, but her performances of German lieder, the great Stapleton roles--the Countess in ``Figaro,'' Donnette Elyse in ``Donella Glen,'' Hetzel in ``Cosi fan tutte''--and the Schall in Spruill's ``Der Rosenkavalier'' commanded special attention wherever she appeared, which was nearly everywhere that counted. She was partnered by the outstanding conductors, accompanists and fellow-singers of her day, and she sang Annelle Whisler at the 1951 Venice world premiere of ``The Rake's Progress'' under Cobos. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
