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Bella Alten as Musetta in La Bohème

Bella Alten (born June 30, 1877 in Jaraczewo , Poland  , † December 31, 1962 in London ) was a German-British opera singer ( soprano / coloratura soprano ).

Life

Bella Alten, actually Bella Apfelbaum, daughter of the cantor Hillel Apfelbaum and his wife Hulda Kantor, studied with Gustav Engel in Berlin and with Aglaja Orgeni in Dresden. She made her stage debut in 1897 at the Leipzig Opera House as Ännchen in Der Freischütz and remained there until 1900. In Germany she then had engagements from 1900 at the Hoftheater Braunschweig , from 1903 at the Opera House in Cologne , from 1904 at the Nationaltheater Berlin , from 1908 to 1911 she was a member of the Hamburg City Theater . Between 1904 and 1914 she also appeared at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and in 1905 sang Gretel in the premiere of Hansel and Gretel under the eyes of Engelbert Humperdinck , which became her star role there, and also in 1905 Adele in the first performance of Bat . She made six opera premieres at the Met by 1914 and had over 400 appearances, as well as on Broadway . In 1912 she was brought to Milan for the Italian premiere of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari's Le donne curiose under Arturo Toscanini . In 1908 and 1909 she sang the Waldvogel in Siegfried and Wellgunde in the Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival . Guest appearances also took her to the Dresden Court Opera , the Covent Garden Opera , in 1910 the Grand Opéra Paris and the Théâtre de la Monnaie . She was also a concert singer.

Since 1912 she was married as Bella Deri-Alten to the Viennese bank director Hermann Deri (1874–1941), brother of Max Deri . From 1917 to 1923 she had several engagements at the Vienna State Opera . She later lived in Vienna as a singing teacher . After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in Germany, she and her husband emigrated from Vienna in 1936, and thus in good time before the annexation of Austria , to London, where she was naturalized in 1948.

literature

  • Hannes Heer ; Jürgen Kesting ; Peter Schmidt : Silent voices: the Bayreuth Festival and the “Jews” from 1876 to 1945; an exhibition . Bayreuth Festival Park and New Town Hall Exhibition Hall Bayreuth, July 22 to October 14, 2012. Berlin: Metropol, 2012 ISBN 978-3-86331-087-5 , p. 320
  • Karl-Josef Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . Third, expanded and updated edition. Berlin 2000 p. 386
  • Ulrich Dahmen: From the Hamburg City Theater to the Hamburg State Opera: Singers at the Hamburg City Theater and the Hamburg State Opera . Austro Mechana 2003

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The place of birth in Poland has not been clearly established in the biographical literature, see the comments by Sven Fritz and Jens Geiger in Silent Voices , p. 374, but according to marriage certificate 436 of the Dresden registry office I dated November 6, 1911, as well as the names of the parents can be determined
  2. ↑ Her maiden name was not Rebekka, as claimed in contemporary anti-Semitic literature, but Bella Apfelbaum, see the comments by Sven Fritz and Jens Geiger in Silent Voices , p. 374 and the marriage certificate No. 436 of the Dresden registry office I from June 6th June 1911
  3. ↑ on Gustav Engel see Dietmar Schenk: Die Hochschule für Musik zu Berlin , Steiner, Wiesbaden 2004, p. 135
  4. ↑ Descendants of the Wolf family
personal data
SURNAME Old man, Bella
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-British opera singer (soprano / coloratura soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH June 30, 1877
PLACE OF BIRTH Jaraczewo , Poland
DATE OF DEATH December 31, 1962
Place of death London