Berta Morena

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Berta Morena

Berta Morena (born January 27, 1877 or 1878 in Mannheim as Berta Meyer , ✝ October 6, 1952 in Rottach-Egern ) was a German chamber singer and court opera singer. She was considered one of the great Wagner singers of the first quarter of the 20th century and appeared on all the major opera stages in Europe. She has also made guest appearances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

Life

Berta Morena comes from an old Swabian family in Rottweil . After the young Morena first appeared as a soloist at concerts of the Mannheim Society for Classical Church Music , the choir director recommended her to the Mannheim court conductor Hugo Röhr . After the audition at the court theater, Röhr's wife, the singing teacher Sofie Röhr-Brajnin , took over the training of the young singer. Morena followed the couple to Munich when Röhr was appointed to the Munich Court Theater in 1896 . In this way Morena was able to continue studying with her teacher. In the following year she sang to the Munich general manager Ernst von Possart , who engaged her at the Court Opera for the following season. Since her debut as Agathe in Carl Maria von Weber's “ Der Freischütz ” on October 15, 1898, she remained a permanent member of the Munich ensemble until 1923. Morena achieved international fame through her regular participation in the 1901 annual Wagner Festival in the Prinzregententheater . Invitations to guest performances all over the world followed. The young singer has performed at the Royal Opera House in London, the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, ​​the Royal Copenhagen Opera , the Budapest National Opera and the Koninglijke Opera Amsterdam. She signed twice at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, which since 1903 had been under the direction of the Austrian Heinrich Conried , who had brought out Gustav Mahler and Enrico Caruso in the USA. First Morena made guest appearances for four consecutive seasons 1908-12, then again for the 1924/25 season after she had already left the Munich Opera. Her resignation in 1923 was due to the increasing influence of National Socialist circles on cultural life as well as anti-Semitic attacks against her and her colleagues. In the following time, under the false pretext that she was Jewish , she was banned from entering the National Theater and made it difficult to perform. The National Socialists used this false pretext to punish the singer for her friendly contacts with Jewish personalities. Their last concert took place as part of a pure Wagner evening on January 14, 1933 in the Odeon in Munich . After saying goodbye to concert life, she worked as a teacher in Munich until she left the city in August 1943 due to bomb attacks and moved to Rottach-Egern am Tegernsee . There she lived in complete seclusion until her death.

Act

After her successful Munich debut as Agathe, Berta Morena initially sang mainly roles in the youth field. Her spectrum was expanded for more dramatic tasks, but she still kept lyrical parts in her repertoire. According to reports, Morena was considered a Wagner heroine and made her triumphant debut as Wagner's Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Sieglinde in Die Walküre , as Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelo under Gustav Mahler 's baton or in the role of Santuzza in Mascagni's Cavalleria rusticana . Since Morena was skeptical of the technical possibilities of sound recording of her time, her voice is only on a single record with recordings from 1908 and 1911, but in the probably most important of the roles she sung (Elsa, Elisabeth, Sieglinde, Brünhilde) Listen.

Web links

Commons : Berta Morena  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Vera Baur: Morena, Berta. Neue Deutsche Biographie 18, 1997, accessed on May 9, 2020 (German).
  2. ↑ a b c d e Klaus Ulrich Spiegel: Royal Bavarian Court Dramatic Idol of Munich's Upper Bourgeois Opera: Berta Morena. In: Klaus Ulrich Spiegel. Retrieved May 9, 2020 .
  3. ↑ a b c Morena, Berta. In: Munzinger Online / People - International Biographical Archive. Retrieved May 9, 2020 .
  4. ↑ Berta Morena. Retrieved May 9, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Andrea Suhm-Binder: Morena, Berta. In: Great Singers of the Past. Retrieved May 9, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Morena, Berta
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meyer, Berta (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chamber singer and court opera singer
DATE OF BIRTH January 27, 1877 or 1878
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH October 6, 1952
Place of death Rottach-Egern