Gwyneth Jones (singer)

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Gwyneth Jones (2000)

Dame Gwyneth Jones DBE (born November 7, 1936 in Pontnewynydd , Wales ) is a British opera singer ( dramatic soprano ).

biography

Studies and early years

Gwyneth Jones was born in the Welsh county of Monmouthshire . She studied singing for four years at the Royal College of Music in London with Arnold Smith and Ruth Packer. Further studies followed at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena , at the International Opera Studio in Zurich and in Geneva with Maria Carpi.

Jones received her first engagement at the Stadttheater Zürich . She made her debut there in the 1962/1963 season as Gypsy Czipra in the operetta Der Zigeunerbaron . Jones initially sang in the mezzo-soprano range . Her first roles in Zurich included Magdalene in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1962), Annina in Der Rosenkavalier (1962), the male title role in Orfeo ed Euridice (1962) and the title role in Carmen (1963). Jones made the switch to soprano, where she first sang soprano roles in the youthful-dramatic field. She sang her first soprano role in April 1963 in Zurich; it was Amelia in Verdi's opera A Masked Ball . In the mid / late 1960s she sang roles such as the title role in Aida (debut: January 1968 in London), Leonora in Der Troubadour (debut: November 1964 in London) and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth (for the first time in 1963 with a guest performance by the Covent Garden Opera at the Welsh Opera in Cardiff ) - a role with which she continued on stage until the late 1990s. In 1964 she made her debut at the parent company of the Royal Covent Garden Opera in London as Leonore in the opera Fidelio . In the course of her career she sang: Leonora in Der Troubadour (season 1964/1965), Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana (debut: March 1965), Sieglinde in Die Walküre (season 1965/1966), Desdemona in Otello (debut: May 1966), Elisabeth von Valois in Don Carlos (debut: June 1966), Donna Anna in Don Giovanni (debut: July 1967), as well as the title roles in Tosca and Salome . Jones appeared repeatedly at the Covent Garden Opera until the 1990s, as Salome (1986), as Brünnhilde (most recently in 1991 in a complete Ring cycle) and as Ortrud in Lohengrin (1997).

International career since the 1960s

Since the mid-1960s, Jones was an international singer. The development to the dramatic soprano took place relatively quickly. In 1966 she appeared as a soprano soloist in the Verdi Requiem in Rome ; she made her debut as Desdemona at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in the same year. In February 1966 she made her debut at the Vienna State Opera with Fidelio- Leonore ; there she was a permanent member of the ensemble until 1995. In 1989 she was made an honorary member there. Jones then made guest appearances at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin . In 1966 she made her US debut at the Dallas Opera House in the role of Lady Macbeth. In the 1966/67 season she sang the Fidelio -Leonore on her debut at La Scala in Milan . In 1970 she made her debut as Salome at the Hamburg State Opera . Since 1972 she was a member of the Metropolitan Opera. There Jones sang in the course of her career, among others: Fidelio- Leonore, Isolde in Tristan and Isolde , the title role in Salome in the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier .

Jones has also made guest appearances at the Grand Opéra Paris (1977 as Poppea in L'incoronazione di Poppea ), at the Salzburg Festival (1979 as Marschallin), at the Cologne Opera (1979 as Elisabeth von Valois; 1984/1985 as Elektra), at the Opera House Nuremberg (1982 as Tosca) and at the Savonlinna Opera Festival (1992 as Fidelio- Leonore).

Later in her career, she mainly took on the highly dramatic title roles in Elektra (including again in 1998 at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, 1989 at the Festival in Orange ) and Turandot (including in 1984 a guest performance by the Covent Garden Opera in Los Angeles , 1985 at the Opera Festival in the Caracalla Baths , 1987 at the opening performance of the new opera house in Pittsburgh , 1990 at the Covent Garden Opera), the dyer in Die Frau ohne Schatten and Isolde. Gwyneth Jones was cast for the main role of Dyer's Wife at a performance of Strauss's opera Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Zurich Opera House in 1985. When the singer canceled the second main role of the Empress on the day of the performance, Jones took on this second role in the same performance.

The Welsh composer Alun Hoddinott dedicated the soprano solo of his Symphony No. 9 , entitled “Vision of Eternity”. Gwyneth Jones sang the world premiere of the work.

Participation in the Bayreuth Festival

Gwyneth Jones in the "Century Ring" performance in Bayreuth in 1976

From 1966 to 1980 Jones appeared regularly at the Bayreuth Festival . In Bayreuth, Jones first sang the Wagner roles in the youthful dramatic field; however, she later took over the highly dramatic Wagner heroines there. She sang the following roles in Bayreuth: Sieglinde in Die Walküre (1966; 1970–1973), Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1968, 1969), Kundry in Parsifal (1969, 1970) and Senta in Der Fliegende Holländer (1969– 1971). In Götz Friedrich's Tannhäuser production (premiere: 1972), which caused a stage scandal , Jones sang the roles of Elisabeth and Venus in the same performance; She repeated this double occupation in Bayreuth in 1973, 1974 and 1977.

Jones sang Brünnhilde in Bayreuth in 1974 only in Götterdämmerung , then in 1975 in the complete tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen . From 1976 to 1980 she sang Brünnhilde in Der Ring des Nibelungen again at the Bayreuth “Jahrhundert-Ring” with the conductor Pierre Boulez and the director Patrice Chéreau . In 1982 Jones stepped in again at short notice to replace the heavily pregnant Lisbeth Balslev as Senta in the Dutch production by Harry Kupfer and sang all the performances in the festival summer of 1982. Besides Isolde and Ortrud, she sang all the major Wagner roles at the Bayreuth Festival their subject.

As a Wagner interpreter, Jones was considered to be the founder of a new type of actor, as a singing actress with intimacy and emotionality. She "freed the Wagner roles from any heroine patina". Gwyneth Jones appeared "emphatically feminine" in the portrayal of the Wagner heroines. Jones was a "stage effective" actress; her “strong personality” helped her to have the greatest impact in the Wagner roles.

Late career years

In the later years of her career (from around 1995) Jones sang many very different roles, from bel canto (1996; title role in Norma in Solothurn) to character subjects . Her roles included: sexton in Leoš Janáček's Jenufa (1996, Dresden State Opera) and Kabanicha in Katja Kabanowa , the woman in Arnold Schönberg's monodrama Anticipation ( Saarland State Theater ), Gertrud in Hansel and Gretel (1997 in Paris at the Théâtre du Châtelet ), the widow Begbick in the rise and fall of the city of Mahagonny (Salzburg Festival, 1998), Ruth in the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance (Wiener Volksoper, 2002) and Herodias in Salome (including in Pittsburgh, Baltimore and 2008 in Malmö ).

Jones is still artistically active and gives individual concerts. In 2005 she made her debut as Klytämnestra in Elektra in Hong Kong . This means that she counts the three major female roles in this opera in her repertoire, something that only Leonie Rysanek achieved before her (who, of course, Elektra never sang on stage). She was also heard as a woman in Francis Poulenc's La voix humaine . In 2007 she sang the Queen of Hearts at the opening of the Munich Opera Festival in the world premiere of the opera Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin . In May 2012 she sang the role of Herodias in Salome again in three performances at the Vienna State Opera. From March to June 2016 she sang the role of Countess in the opera Pique Dame at the Braunschweig State Theater . In April 2017 she performed in the ballroom of the historic town hall in Landsberg with Richard Strauss ' melodrama Enoch Arden .

Drama and film

In 1983 she played the first Isolde, Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld, in the mini-series Wagner - The Life and Work of Richard Wagner . She also embodied this personality on stage in the one-woman show O, Malvina! . In another one-woman show, she portrayed The Woman in the Shadow , Pauline de Ahna , the wife of Richard Strauss . In 2012 she worked on the film quartet of Dustin Hoffman with, in which she plays an aging diva, a role for which she received rave reviews.

Jones lives in Küsnacht ZH in Switzerland. She is an honorary member of the Richard Wagner Association of the Saarland .

In her first marriage she was married to the Swiss businessman Till Haberfeld, with whom she has the daughter Susannah; she is also an opera singer ( mezzo-soprano ). Her second marriage is to the conductor and pianist Adrian Müller.

Discography (selection)

TV recordings (selection)

Awards

In addition, Dame Gwyneth Jones is the current owner of Adelina Patti's famous jewels , which were given to her by the soprano Dame Eva Turner .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 1876 ​​BAYREUTH 1991 (original publication of the Bayreuth Festival; with documentation of the line-up of the Bayreuth Festival 1951–1990)
  2. ^ Gwyneth Jones is 75: The singing actress in: Badische Zeitung ; Retrieved August 14, 2012.
  3. ↑ Wagner-Heroine Gwyneth Jones turns 75  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in: Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung from November 7, 2011; Retrieved August 14, 2012.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.noz.de  
  4. ^ A b Walter Herrmann, Adrian Hollaender: Legends and Stars of the Opera. Leykam Verlag, Graz 2007, ISBN 978-3-7011-7571-0 , p. 46ff.
  5. ↑ Dame Gwyneth Jones delighted with melodrama by Richard Strauss at the town hall concert . Performance review. In: Kreisbote from April 25, 2017. Retrieved November 30, 2017.
  6. ↑ The great singer does not sing . Performance review. In: Augsburger Allgemeine, April 27, 2017. Retrieved November 30, 2017.
  7. ^ "Quartet" premiere: Dustin Hoffman is celebrated in Berlin in: Der Tagesspiegel (Berlin) on January 20, 2013. Accessed on December 24, 2014
personal data
SURNAME Jones, Gwyneth
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Welsh opera singer
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Pontnewynydd , Wales