Ljuba Welitsch

Ljuba Welitsch a adăugat o fotografie

acum 8 zile

R.I.P
Ljuba

Ljuba Welitsch (Veličkova; Bulgarian: Люба Величкова 10 July 1913 – 1 September 1996) was an operatic soprano. She was born in Borisovo, Bulgaria, studied in Sofia and Vienna, and sang in opera houses in Austria and Germany in the late 1930s and early and mid-1940s. In 1946 she became an Austrian citizen. Welitsch became best known in the title role of Richard Strauss's Salome, in which she was coached by the composer. Her international career was short, its start delayed by the Second World War and its end hastened by vocal problems. It took off in 1947 in London and continued in New York from 1949, but her starring days were over by the mid-1950s. Her international career was just before the days when complete studio recordings of operas were common, and although some live recordings survive from broadcasts, her recorded legacy is not extensive. From the mid-1950s, Welitsch sang character roles in operas and acted in stage plays. She died in Vienna at the age of 83.

Ljuba Welitsch a adăugat o fotografie

acum 8 zile

R.I.P
Ljuba

Early years Welitsch was born in Borissovo, Bulgaria, and grew up on her family's farm with her two sisters. Her interest in music began as a young girl; when she was eight one of her sisters gave her a violin, and for a while she considered becoming a professional player. After leaving high school in Shumen she read philosophy at Sofia University, gaining a PhD. In Sofia she sang in choirs, and studied music with Georgi Zlatev-Cherkin. With funding from the Bulgarian government she moved to Vienna to study with Theo Lierhammer, professor of singing at the State Academy. Welitsch made her operatic debut in Sofia in 1936, in a small part in Louise. Her first major role was Nedda in Pagliacci at the Graz Opera in the same year. She learned her craft with the Graz company over the next three years, singing an unusually wide range of soprano roles, in operas by composers from Mozart to Wagner, Humperdinck, Puccini and Richard Strauss. Between then and the end of the Second World War she was a member of opera companies in Hamburg (1941–1943), Munich and Berlin (1943–1946). While in Berlin she played the role of the young Composer in…Citește mai mult

Ljuba Welitsch a adăugat o fotografie

acum 8 zile

R.I.P
Ljuba

International career In 1947 Salmhofer took the company to London at the invitation of Covent Garden Opera. Welitsch was not completely unknown to British audiences, having been heard, and well-received, in performances of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and Verdi's Requiem under John Barbirolli, but her reception in the opera house made headlines. At Covent Garden as Donna Anna and Salome she made a sensation, eclipsing her fellow company member Maria Cebotari, with whom she was sharing both roles. According to the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians she "dazzl[ed] London audiences with the passion, vocal purity and compelling force" of her performances. While in London, Welitsch took part in two broadcast performances of Strauss's Elektra, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham in the presence of the composer. David Webster, the director of the Royal Opera House, recognising Welitsch's talent, secured her services for the resident company, with whom she appeared between 1948 and 1953 in Aida, La bohème, Salome, Tosca and The Queen of Spades. In London, as in Vienna, operas were then customarily performed in the local language, and Welitsch, like other German singers performing at Covent Garden, had to learn her roles in English. As Musetta in La bohème, according…Citește mai mult

Ljuba Welitsch a adăugat o fotografie

acum 8 zile

R.I.P
Ljuba

Later years By 1953 Welitsch had developed nodules on her vocal cords, necessitating surgery. That, compounded by her unusually high number of performances, led to a swift deterioration in her singing, and she was obliged to give up the star roles for which she was most celebrated. She had expected a longer career, and had been contemplating taking on the role of Isolde in a few years' time, although she was not enamoured of Wagner in general. The critic Tim Ashley writes that Welitsch's farewell to Salome came on film in Carol Reed's 1955 thriller The Man Between, in a scene set in the Berlin State Opera during a performance of the opera. "You only see her in long shot, though it's enough to get an idea of what she was like on stage." Welitsch was still able to sing roles such as Magda in Puccini's La rondine in Vienna in 1955, and to record the character part of Marianne, the duenna, in Herbert von Karajan's 1956 set of Der Rosenkavalier. She successfully turned to the non-operatic stage, in parts such as June in a German translation of The Killing of Sister George in Berlin in 1970. Long after her…Citește mai mult

Ljuba Welitsch a adăugat o fotografie

acum 8 zile

R.I.P
Ljuba

Critical assessment In 1953, writing while Welitsch's career was at its height, Lord Harewood, editor of Opera, said of her: Her singing has a purity about it which one can only describe as instrumental – instrumental, that is to say, in the sense that the voice itself is absolutely even from bottom to top, and that the musical line appears to be quite indestructible and independent of such mundane considerations as the need to take in more breath." Harewood's colleague Harold Rosenthal had earlier expressed strong doubt that recordings could do justice to Welitsch's powers. Rosenthal's comments were written in 1949, when Welitsch had made only a handful of recordings, but writing long after her retirement, J. B. Steane also felt that the various recordings available by then did not flatter her: It is hard to think of a voice with a brighter shine to it, or of a singer with greater energy and more sense of joy in that sheer act of producing these glorious sounds. Even here, however, one notes that subtlety is hardly in question; there is little of the lithe seductiveness which Schwarzkopf and Güden bring to the [Fledermaus] Czardas, for instance. And this limits much…Citește mai mult

Ljuba Welitsch a lăsat un gând

acum 8 zile

Complete operas Welitsch's international career ended at about the time long-playing records were becoming the predominant medium for recordings. They opened the way for complete recordings of a large number of operas, but Welitsch retired too early to be part of this new development. Her only studio recording of a complete opera was Die Fledermaus (in English, without dialogue) recorded for the American Columbia label in December 1950 and January 1951 with the same cast and conductor as the contemporary Metropolitan Opera production. There were plans to make a complete studio recording of Salome, with Fritz Reiner conducting, but they fell through for lack of funds. Complete live recordings of Welitsch in Salome were made in 1949 and 1952 and have been released in CD transfers. The critical consensus is that the first has Welitsch in better form, but with a weaker supporting cast than that of the 1952 set. Studio and off-air recordings of Welitsch in the final scene of Salome have been issued. The most widely circulated was a 1949 studio recording conducted by Reiner. The version mentioned by Steane, above, was recorded in Vienna in 1944 with Lovro von Matačić conducting. Other off-air recordings of complete operas…Citește mai mult

Ljuba Welitsch a lăsat un gând

acum 8 zile

Operatic excerpts Early in 1946 the recording producer Walter Legge, talent-spotting in Vienna, signed Welitsch up as an EMI artist. For the EMI Columbia label she recorded arias including Tatiana's letter scene from Eugene Onegin, "Ritorna vincitor" from Aida, "Vissi d'arte" from Tosca, Musetta's Waltz from La bohème and "Wie nahte mir der Schlummer" from Der Freischütz. With the Metropolitan orchestra under various conductors, Welitsch made studio recordings of two numbers from Don Giovanni in 1949, arias from Die Fledermaus, The Gypsy Baron and two numbers from Tosca in 1950. In June 1950 Welitsch, accompanied by the Vienna State Opera Orchestra, conducted by Rudolf Moralt, recorded for Decca eight arias by Lehár, Tchaikovsky, Verdi and Millöcker. The Verdi numbers were sung in Italian; the Tchaikovsky arias were given in German.

Ljuba Welitsch a lăsat un gând

acum 8 zile

Songs Some recordings of (mostly) German songs made by Welitsch in New York, accompanied at the piano by Paul Ulanowsky, were not released at the time, but have been published on CD. Some or all of them may have been intended as trial runs for future recordings. They include songs by Richard Strauss, Mahler's Rückert-Lieder and songs by Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Alexander Dargomyzhsky and Joseph Marx.