Frieda Hempel

“È scherzo od è follia”: Un ballo in maschera (1859), act 1, scene 2. Singing by Enrico Caruso , Frieda Hempel, Marie Duchène , Andrés de Segurola and Léon Rothier .

Frieda Hempel (born June 26, 1885 in Leipzig , † October 7, 1955 in Berlin ) was a German opera singer ( soprano ).

Life

Frieda Hempel first studied piano playing at the Leipzig Conservatory. From 1902 her voice was trained at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin with Selma Nicklass-Kempner.

She made her debut in 1905 and first sang in Berlin, quickly became famous as "the emperor's lark" and moved to Schwerin , only to return to Berlin after three years at the request of Wilhelm II . In 1912 she followed a call to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City , where she often appeared with Enrico Caruso , among others . She only returned to Germany sporadically.

Grave of Frieda Hempel in the Heerstrasse cemetery in Berlin-Westend

In the late summer of 1955 Frieda Hempel came to West Berlin to be treated for a serious illness from which she had already suffered for six months. She died two months later at the age of 70 in Berlin's Franziskus Hospital . The burial took place after cremation in the state-owned cemetery Heerstraße in today's district of Berlin-Westend (grave location: I-Erb-12).

Shortly after her death, her memoirs were published by Argon Verlag in Berlin under the title Mein Leben dem Gesang .

Caricature by Enrico Caruso , 1909, Ghent University Library

student

Her students in New York included the American singing teacher and bel canto specialist Cornelius L. Reid .

literature

Frieda Hempel: My life is singing . Argon Verlag, Berlin 1955.

Web links

Commons : Frieda Hempel - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Frieda Hempel at Operissimo on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon

Individual evidence

↑ Frieda Hempel died . In: Hamburger Abendblatt . Saturday / Sunday, 8./9. October 1955. p. 9. Retrieved on November 11, 2019. Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon Berlin Burial Sites . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 488.

personal data
SURNAME	Hempel, Frieda
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German opera singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH	June 26, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH	Leipzig
DATE OF DEATH	October 7, 1955
Place of death	Berlin

[1] Frieda Hempel died . In: Hamburger Abendblatt . Saturday / Sunday, 8./9. October 1955. p. 9. Retrieved on November 11, 2019. Hans-Jürgen Mende : Lexicon Berlin Burial Sites . Pharus-Plan, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-86514-206-1 . P. 488.