Else brake
Else Brems (born July 16, 1908 in Copenhagen ; † October 4, 1995 there ) was a Danish opera singer (Kontraalt), chamber singer (1946) and singing teacher.
Life
Else Brems came from a family of musicians: her grandfather Peter Rasmussen was an organist and composer, her uncle Alfred Rasmussen was a horn player and her mother Gerda Emilie Rasmussen was a pianist. Her father, the singer Anders Brems, was her first singing teacher. When she was seventeen, her father introduced her to Mattia Battistini , who was enthusiastic about her voice. During a four-month stay in Paris, she studied the French repertoire with Georges Cunelli and Povla Frijsh .
At the age of twenty she made her debut as a singer in Copenhagen, then she continued her training with Sara Cahier in Berlin. In 1930 she made her debut at the Royal Theater in Copenhagen under the conductor Leo Blech as Carmen . With brief interruptions, she was engaged at the Royal Theater until 1962. She gave Carmen in no time in Vienna, Warsaw, Budapest, Stockholm and London. In 1933 she appeared in the USA with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and sang arias by Christoph Willibald Gluck , Camille Saint-Saëns and Georges Bizet .
In 1937 she took lessons in New York with Beniamino Gigli's teacher Enrico Rosati . In 1938 she engaged Bruno Walter for a performance of Carmen at the Vienna State Opera . Her partners were Theodor Mazaroff and Jan Kiepura . From 1940 to 1949 Berms was married to the tenor Stefan Islandi , with whom she gave numerous concerts. In 1943 she took part in the European premiere of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess in Copenhagen, which was seen as a demonstration against the German occupation forces. In 1948 she appeared as Carmen at the Covent Garden Opera .
After the end of her active singing career, Brems worked as a singing teacher from 1967 to 1978. Her most successful student was Elisabeth Meyer-Topsoe .
Web links
- Else Brems at Operissimo on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
- cantabile-subito - Great Singers of the Past - Else Brems
- KVInfo - Else Brems
- Bach Cantatas website - Else Brems
Individual evidence
- ↑ Karl-Josef Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Großes Sängerlexikon , 1st volume, p. 446, CD-ROM version (= 3rd expanded edition [1997–2000])
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Brake, Else |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Danish opera singer (Kontraalt) and vocal teacher |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 16, 1908 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Copenhagen |
| DATE OF DEATH | 4th October 1995 |
| Place of death | Copenhagen |