Bertha Ehnn

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Bertha Ehnn

Bertha Ehnn , bourgeois Windisch (born November 30, 1847 in Pest , † March 2, 1932 in Aschberg ) was an Austrian opera singer with a mezzo-soprano and soprano voice . She appeared as a chamber singer at the Vienna Court Opera for 16 years and was one of the most important singers of her time.

Live and act

childhood and education

Bertha Ehnn was born in Pest, one of the three cities that later became Hungary's capital Budapest . As a child, she came to Vienna with her parents in 1850. From 1861 to 1862 she studied singing at the Conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna , the forerunner of the Vienna Academy for Music and Performing Arts . Ehnn's singing teachers included Maria Andriessen von Lingke and Salvatore Marchesi. After leaving the conservatory after a relatively short period of time, she continued to be taught by Andriessen. Ehnn made her first public appearance at the Wiener Singakademie . There she sang at a concert in the last year of her training as a soloist. In November 1863 she took part in an audition before the examination board of the Vienna Court Opera , but was unsuccessful.

Career start in Linz, Graz, Nuremberg and Stuttgart (1864 to 1867)

Ehnn made her professional singing debut on January 8, 1864 as Nancy in Friedrich von Flotow's romantic-comic opera Martha and then as Irene in Belisarius by Gaetano Donizetti , both at the Linz State Theater . There she also received a short role study with Kapellmeister Möller. At the end of 1864 she became a member of the Stadttheater Graz , where she said goodbye in April 1865 as Agathe in ( Der Freischütz ). In May 1864 she had guest appearances in Hanover, among others as Pamina ( Die Zauberflöte ), Gabriele ( Das Nachtlager in Granada ) and Orsino ( Lucrezia Borgia ). From 1865 to 1866 she sang at the Nuremberg City Theater . There she made her debut on November 10th again with the role of Agathe and sang her first title role as Selica in the premiere of Giacomo Meyerbeer's grand opéra Die Afrikanerin on November 26th, 1865 . In May 1866 she gave a guest performance at the Hoftheater Darmstadt , where she sang Margarethe ( Faust ), Agathe and Selica. She then received contract offers from both Darmstadt and the Hoftheater Stuttgart and decided on the latter. Before that, she continued her studies with Pauline Viardot-Garcia and gave a very successful guest performance at the Vienna Court Opera from July 18 to August 30. Director Luigi Matteo Salvi then offered her an engagement, which she was unable to take on immediately because of a three-year relationship with the Hoftheater Stuttgart. In Stuttgart she finally gave her debut on November 2, 1866 as Agathe. She soon gained popularity with audiences, particularly through her appearance in Die Favoritin on November 11th. She sang successfully the roles of Gabriele, Margarethe and Pamina, among others. Artistic differences and the desire to move to the Vienna Court Opera made her ask for an early termination of the engagement, which was rejected. Only by paying a penalty of 5000 guilders was she finally able to terminate the contract with the Stuttgart court theater on December 28, 1867.

Vienna Court Opera and guest performances (1868 to 1885)

Bertha Ehnn, undated

On January 1, 1868, Ehnn became a permanent member of the ensemble at the Vienna Court Opera, to which she belonged until May 31, 1885. Her inaugural roles in Vienna were Margarethe, with whom she made her debut there on January 7, 1968, and Gabriele. On May 5, 1869, she received the title of kk chamber singer . In 1882 she appeared at the Vienna premiere of Schubert's Alfonso and Estrella . Due to the large range of her voice, which had a relatively dark timbre , she could sing both soprano and mezzo-soprano parts and had a broad repertoire of different leading roles. She celebrated great success in Vienna, which was partly due to her extremely dramatic play. Her elegant appearance also contributed to her impact on the stage. Together with the lyrical tenor Gustav Walter , she was considered the ideal cast for Gounod's Romeo and Juliet , but the two also harmonized as Eva and Stolzing in Wagner's Meistersingern von Nürnberg .

Ehnn also won over critics and audiences on her guest appearances. In 1869 she sang at the Leipzig Opera House , the Wiesbaden Court Theater , the Aachen City Theater and the German Theater in Prague . The following year she made guest appearances in Stuttgart and Graz. She was particularly successful in January 1873 at the Berlin Court Opera , where, after Pauline Lucca's resignation, she took over the roles of Mignon, Margarete, Selica and Cherubin ( Figaro's wedding ). Ehnn's singing was seen as equal to that of the Lucca, and their performance was rated as better. Although some critics had previously denied her voice the ability to coloratura , she sang the corresponding parts of Lucca with success. She then received a contract offer for Berlin, but instead concluded a new contract on better terms with the Vienna Court Opera. On September 1, 1873, she married the Austrian captain Sand.

Farewell to the stage

Bertha Ehnn in her last role as Mignon (Vienna 1885), lithograph by Ignaz Eigner

After her last appearance as Mignon on April 29, 1885, Bertha Ehnn retired from the stage and lived on a country estate in Aschberg / Kirchstetten . In 1918 she appeared again with Ludwig Wüllner in Vienna, where she sang the role of Astarte in Schuhmann's setting of George Gordon Byron's Manfred . She died in 1932 at the age of 84 on her estate in Aschberg.

reception

The contemporary critic Eduard Hanslick assessed Bertha Ehnn's life's work at the Vienna Court Opera in 1885 in his musical sketchbook . In it he counted the three girl characters Gretchen (Margarethe), Julia and Mignon among Ehnn's strongest roles by far. Her Gretchen is "probably the most original and most directly touching" that has ever been heard in Vienna. He particularly emphasized Ehnn's connection with the role of Mignon: “[Ehnn's] almost childlike delicate figure, the pale face surrounded by brown curls, above whose defiant blunt noses a pair of dark eyes, shaded by long eyelashes, looked serious and pensive - that Everything matched Mignon's picture incomparably. Most wonderful, however, is the velvety, dark sound of the voice! The peculiar magic of this singer lay in him. ”While Hanslick listed a few other roles that Ehnn had mastered with“ her own poetry and dramatic feeling ”despite small musical weaknesses, he described her circle of roles as never expanding and judged her vocal character to be was only suitable for decisive mezzo-soprano parts. His assessment therefore contradicts lexical entries that highlight Ehnn's repertoire as particularly extensive.

Roles (selection)

Bertha Ehnn's repertoire included the following roles:

literature

Web links

Commons : Bertha Ehnn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In some sources October 30, 1845 is given as the date of birth, cf. also Kutsch / Riemens, where both variants are mentioned.
  2. ↑ a b c Ehnn, Bertha. In: Austrian Biographical Lexicon 1815–1950 (ÖBL). Volume 1, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 1957, p. 226.
  3. ^ Ludwig Eisenberg: Ehnn, Bertha . In: Das Geistige Wien: Artist and Writer Lexicon. Daberkow, Vienna 1889, p. 221.
  4. ↑ a b c K. J. Kutsch, Leo Riemens: Ehnn, Bertha . In: Grosses Sängerlexikon Vol. 2, Saur, Munich 2003, p. 1299.
  5. ^ A b Ludwig Eisenberg: Ehnn, Bertha . In: Das Geistige Wien: Artist and Writer Lexicon. Daberkow, Vienna 1889, p. 222.
  6. ↑ Ehnn, Bertha . In: Catalog of the portrait collection of the kuk General-Intendanz of the kk Hoftheater Second Department, Group IV., Wiener Hoftheater, Conimissions-Vorlag, Vienna 1892, p. 396  - Internet Archive .
  7. ↑ Ehnn (E. Sand), Bertha . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon . 4th edition. Volume 5, Verlag des Bibliographisches Institut, Leipzig / Vienna 1885–1892, p. 342.
  8. ↑ A. Ehrlich (Ed.): Ehnn, Bertha . In: Famous Singers Past and Present: A Collection of 91 Biographies and 90 Portraits. Payne, Leipzig 1896, p. 41.
  9. ↑ Report of Bertha Ehnn's last appearance in Der Humorist May 1, 1885, p. 8.
  10. ↑ a b Gertrud Doublier:  Ehnn, Bertha. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, ISBN 3-428-00185-0 , p. 349 ( digitized version ).
  11. ^ Eduard Hanslick: Bertha Ehnn (April 1885) . In: Musical sketchbook. The modern opera IV. Part. General Association for German Literature, Berlin 1888, pp. 138–143.
personal data
SURNAME Ehnn, Bertha
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sand, Bertha (married name); Windisch, Bertha (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian soprano
DATE OF BIRTH November 30, 1847
PLACE OF BIRTH pest
DATE OF DEATH March 2, 1932
Place of death Aschberg