Eva Liebenberg

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Eva Liebenberg (real name: Gertrud Lina Hedwig Liebenberg ; born February 15, 1890 in Stettin ; † November 18, 1971 in Hilversum , Netherlands ) was a German opera and concert singer ( alto ).

Life

Eva Liebenberg studied singing with Hugo Rasch in Berlin and made her debut in this city in the 1920/1921 season at the Thalia Theater . After a stopover at the Landestheater Coburg , the singer returned to Berlin and from then on appeared on stage at home and abroad, primarily as a concert and oratorio alto.

She also made a name for herself as an opera singer - especially in Wagner operas. She sang at the Bayreuth Festival (1927/1928), at the Dresden State Opera (1934), in Königsberg (1936), Berlin (1934–1938) and Cologne (1940), especially Erda and the First Norn in Richard Wagner's The Ring of the Nibelung . The performances in the 1930s were associated with considerable difficulties for her as a Jew. She emigrated to Holland, where - in contrast to many other artists - she was able to survive the persecution of Jews that began after the German invasion in 1941.

In her early artistic years, Eva Liebenberg was also fond of film: as early as 1918, she played the singer Rita Marloff in the silent film A Thousand and a Wife by Iwa Raffay . In the film Ways to Strength and Beauty by Wilhelm Prager and Nicolaus Kaufmann , she stood in front of the camera alongside Leni Riefenstahl and others. This documentary received good reviews at the time, but is now associated with a “racial myth of the National Socialists that was anchored as early as the 1920s”.

After the war Eva Liebenberg was a recognized singing teacher in Hilversum. The contralto Eva Bornemann and the bass-baritone Étienne Bettens studied with her . Her voice has been preserved on numerous recordings, some of which are still available today on CD or as MP3 downloads.

Filmography

Discography

  • Living Past - Four German Contraltos Of The Past (Eva Liebenberg, Luise Willer, Maria Olszewska, Margarete Klose), Preiser Records, Vienna 1997
  • ABC of the Art of Singing - Historical Singing Lexicon Part 3 , Cantus Classic / Line Music, Hamburg 2000

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eva Liebenberg. In: Karl-Josef Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . Volume 3: Hirata - Seagulls. 3rd, expanded edition. KG Saur, Bern et al. 1997, ISBN 3-598-11250-5 .
  2. ^ For example, by Siegfried Kracauer, Frankfurter Zeitung (Stadt-Blatt), May 21, 1925. Printed in: Siegfried Kracauer : Werke. Volume 6: Small writings on film. Volume 1: 1921 - 1927. Edited by Inka Mülder-Bach and Ingrid Belke. With the collaboration of Mirjam Wenzel and Sabine Biebl. Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2004, ISBN 3-518-58336-0 .
  3. ↑ Lexicon of International Films under the heading Paths to Power and Beauty .
personal data
SURNAME Liebenberg, Eva
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Liebenberg, Gertrud Lina Hedwig
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera and concert singer (alto)
DATE OF BIRTH February 15, 1890
PLACE OF BIRTH Szczecin
DATE OF DEATH 18th November 1971
Place of death Hilversum , Netherlands