Gundula Janowitz

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Gundula Janowitz (born August 2, 1937 in Berlin ) is an Austrian opera , oratorio and concert singer ( lyric soprano ).

Life

Gundula Janowitz studied in Graz with Herbert Thöny and began to sing in high-ranking ensembles as early as the late 1950s (e.g. The Creation with Herbert von Karajan , 1960). In 1960 she sang one of the flower girls in Wagner's Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival . In the same year she engaged Karajan as Barbarina in Mozart's Le nozze di Figaro at the Vienna State Opera , of which she remained a permanent member until 1990. She also started her international career from Vienna. In 1963 she made her debut at the international Festival d'Aix-en-Provence and at the Salzburg Festival, followed by her debut at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1964 (alongside Luciano Pavarotti ).

Gundula Janowitz has made guest appearances at the world's leading opera houses (e.g. Metropolitan Opera , Teatro alla Scala , Covent Garden ). At the Paris Opera in 1973 she sang the Countess in a legendary new production of Le nozze di Figaro (conductor Georg Solti , director Giorgio Strehler , set design Ezio Frigerio ).

In the 1960s and 1970s she was one of the most popular singers in her field internationally and developed a comprehensive and widely recognized discography from Johann Sebastian Bach to Richard Strauss in collaboration with the most important conductors (her temporary mentor Herbert von Karajan, Otto Klemperer , Karl Böhm , Eugen Jochum , Leonard Bernstein , Rafael Kubelík , Georg Solti , Carlos Kleiber ). Furthermore she worked very successfully under Karl Richter , u. a. with the Christmas Oratorio .

One of the main focuses of Janowitz's work was the design of recitals, for example several times at the Salzburg Festival . Her singing career was followed by a job as a singing teacher. In 1990 she temporarily took over the position of opera director in Graz.

Her farewell premiere was in November 1987 at the Vienna State Opera in the Klytämnestra in Christoph Willibald Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide (conductor Charles Mackerras , director Claus Helmut Drese , set design Hans Schavernoch ). Gundula Janowitz took her official stage farewell in 1990.

Gundula Janowitz was married to the Berlin opera director Nikolaus Sulzberger until his death and lives in the area of St. Pölten , Lower Austria .

Voice and repertoire

Gundula Janowitz's voice was characterized by a very bright, pure, tremolo-free tone with little vibrato and even breathing technique and retained its youthful sound and freshness into old age. Like her predecessors, Elisabeth Grümmer and Maria Stader, who were similar in timbre, and her peer Elizabeth Harwood , she mastered above all the high and medium registers and the lyrical-pathetic expression. So she occasionally tried her hand at dramatic ( Sieglinde , Leonore ) or comic roles ( Marzelline , Rosalinde ), but she was valued above all as Countess Almaviva , Pamina , Agathe , Eva , Gutrune , Arabella , Ariadne and as Countess in Capriccio . With a few exceptions, she avoided foreign language roles and the modern repertoire in general, with the exception of the composers Richard Strauss and Carl Orff .

Awards

Discography (selection)

Filmography (selection)

Operas:

Interview:

Literature (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Performances with Gundula Janowitz at the Bayreuth Festival (1960–1963)
  2. ^ Gundula Janowitz 'appearances at the Vienna State Opera
  3. ↑ Gundula Janowitz 'appearances at the Salzburg Festival (1963–1981)
  4. ↑ Gundula Janowitz 'appearances at the Glyndebourne Festival (1964)
  5. ^ Gundula Janowitz 'appearances at the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1967–1968)
  6. ^ Gundula Janowitz 'appearances at La Scala in Milan (1970, 1971, 1978)
  7. ^ Gundula Janowitz 'appearances at the Royal Opera House / Covent Garden in London (1976, 1981)
  8. ↑ Cast list for Le nozze di Figaro at the Paris Opera (1973)
  9. ^ Hugo Wolf Medal for Austrian soprano Janowitz. July 22, 2019, accessed July 24, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Janowitz, Gundula
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian opera, oratorio and concert singer (lyric soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH August 2, 1937
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin