Barbara Kemp
Angelina Barbara Kemp (born December 12, 1881 in Cochem ; † April 17, 1959 in Berlin ) was a German opera singer ( soprano ) and opera director.
Life
Her musical talent was discovered at the monastery school in Cochem. In 1897 her father, Joseph Kemp, drowned; he was a boatman on the Moselle. With her mother Maria Barbara geb. Schwickerath moved them to Strasbourg.
Barbara Kemp studied from 1902 to 1905 at the Strasbourg Conservatory . Since 1903 she was already working as a trainee at the local theater. From 1906 to 1908 she sang at the Rostock City Theater and from 1909 to 1913 at the Wroclaw Opera House. In Breslau she married the doctor Dr. Mickley, whom she later split up with. In 1913 she was engaged at the Berlin Court Opera , where she made her career. At the Bayreuth Festival in 1914 she sang Senta in Fliegende Holländer , and from 1924–1927 Kundry in Parsifal .
After the First World War she had success in guest performances: from 1922 to 1927 she made regular guest appearances at the Vienna State Opera , from 1922 to 1924 she worked at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (inaugural role: Mona Lisa in the opera of the same name by Max von Schillings ). She continued to sing in Hague and Amsterdam, in Budapest and Prague, in Munich, Dresden and Hamburg. In 1923 she married the composer and conductor Max von Schillings, who was general director of the Berlin State Opera from 1919 to 1925. Her roles ranged from the Italian subject ( Aida , Leonore in Troubador and Santuzza) to the heroines of Richard Wagner and Strauss.
When Max von Schillings left his post as general manager because of disagreements with the Minister of Education and Cultural Affairs Becker, Kemp also left the Berlin State Opera and signed a guest performance contract. In 1932 she ended her career and since then has lived as a singing teacher in Berlin. In 1939 she took over the direction of a new production of the Mona Lisa at the Berlin State Opera.
Barbara Kemp died in Berlin in 1959 at the age of 77 and was buried in the St. Annen Kirchhof in Berlin-Dahlem . The grave has not been preserved.
Letters and Quotes
Wilhelm Raupp writes about Barbara Kemp in his book Max von Schillings : Her temperament grips all things with unheard-of, passionate vehemence. She has a unique ability to raise the affects in a flash and to squander them in the rapid change of moods, so that her acting portrayal ingeniously captures all conceivable shades of expression and conquers them stylistically with natural ease.
This great tragedy never learned from others, never appropriated anything foreign; from the beginning she possessed her own mysterious powers of experience.
An instinctive sensitivity allows them to quickly grasp the spiritual content of the materials and shapes and to fully exploit their dramatic meaning. So Barbara Kemp becomes an ideal representative of all parts that protrude beyond the general template and require monumental human representation. Since she has a voice that is able to bring out every musical nuance to the fullest, she is definitely a unique phenomenon in her field of art .
How even Richard Strauss must have appreciated the artist can be seen from a letter to Max von Schillings, which refers to a guest performance by the artist. I would like her (Barbara Kemp) to first rehearse the “Dutchman” I have staged, and then in quick succession the dyer in “Woman without a Shadow”, Marschallin in “Rosenkavalier”, Salome, maybe Elektra, Elsa, Valentine, Donna Anna and singing Carmen.
literature
- Oskar Bie : Barbara Kemp . Reiss, Berlin 1921
- Mecklenburg guest book: Max von Schillings; Barbara Kemp . In: Mecklenburgische Monatshefte: Journal for the care of native art and art. Schwerin, 11th year 1935, issue 125, page 235.
- Peter Scherl: Cochem in old views . European Library, Zaltbommel 1995. ISBN 90-288-2244-5 . Page 73
- Alfons Friderichs (Ed.): Kemp, Barbara In: Personalities of the Cochem-Zell district. Kliomedia, Trier 2004. ISBN 3-89890-084-3 . Page 183
- The Cochem singer Barbara Kemp . In: Stadt- und Landbote der Stadt Cochem . Edition 50/2006. Page 53
- Petra and Wolfgang Lambertz: The opera star Barbara Kemp. In: Heimatjahrbuch Cochem-Zell 2007 . ISSN 0939-6179. Page 159–161
- Typewriter manuscript, Cochem City Archives
Web links
- Barbara Kemp at Operissimo on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
- Entry for Barbara Kemp in the Rhineland-Palatinate personal database
- BARBARA KEMP Sings Opera from Classical Review , accessed December 26, 2018
- Barbara Kemp opera singer and director from Cochem, article in the Eifel newspaper on August 13, 2014
- Barbara Kemp, German opera singer (soprano) , accessed December 26, 2018
- Literature by and about Barbara Kemp in the bibliographic database WorldCat
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans-Jürgen Mende: Lexicon of Berlin burial places . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 , p. 564.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kemp, Barbara |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kemp, Angelina Barbara (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German opera singer (soprano) and opera director |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 12, 1881 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Cochem |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 17, 1959 |
| Place of death | Berlin |