Helene Harlaß
Helene Harlaß , also Helena Harlaß , married Helene von Geiger (1785/1786 in Danzig - October 21, 1818 in Munich ) was a German opera singer ( soprano ) and stage actress .
Life
At the age of three, Harlaß came to Munich to live with Anna Theresia Labik, the daughter of the electoral court musician and horn player Johannes Labik, who died in 1785 . There she also received music lessons.
At the age of 15 she was forced to become a nun. Her voice was discovered in the nuns' choir there, so that she could leave the monastery again after 9 months. Then she received singing lessons by supporting the Elector Maximilian Joseph at Johann Baptist Lasser . At the age of 20 she sang for the first time at the royal court and in 1803 was engaged at the court opera in Munich, where she also worked as an important actress.
On August 25, 1805, she married the Royal Bavarian General Secretary of Finance Gottfried Maria Joseph von Geiger (1775-1830). After that, she reduced her stage presence, also because of several pregnancies, but occasionally remained active as a singer in concerts and in German and Italian opera.
After she had already met the clarinetist Heinrich Joseph Baermann (1784–1847) in 1807 , she probably divorced Geiger in the fall of 1810. From the following relationship with Baermann she had five children (three boys, two girls), including Carl Baermann (1811-1885), also a clarinetist.
In 1813 she made a successful guest appearance in Vienna, where she also met Carl Maria von Weber . In 1815/16 she gave a guest performance in Venice during the Carnival. In March 1816 she returned to Munich, where she did not appear for a long time due to a pregnancy. Her return did not take place until November 9, 1817 when she appeared in Meyerbeer's cantata for soprano and concert clarinet Gli amori di Teolinda at the Munich Court Theater (clarinet: Baermann).
In the summer of 1818 they traveled to Potsdam to visit Baermann's family via Dresden and Hosterwitz. At their station in Hosterwitz they met Weber again, who also gave them a performance at the Dresden court theater. When she returned to Munich, she died unexpectedly of nerve fever on October 21, 1818 there.
literature
- Felix Joseph Lipowsky : Baierisches Musiklexikon . Giel, Munich 1811, p. 111 ( digitized version ).
- Joseph Kürschner: Harlaß, Helene . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1879, p. 602.
- KJ Kutsch , Leo Riemens : Large singer lexicon . Unchanged edition. KG Saur, Bern, 1993, first volume A – L, Sp. XXX, ISBN 3-907820-70-3
Web links
- Helene Harlaß in the Bavarian Musicians' Lexicon Online (BMLO)
- Helene Harlaß at Operissimo on the basis of the Great Singer Lexicon
- Helene Harlaß in the Carl Maria von Weber Complete Edition
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Harlaß, Helene |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Harlaß, Helena; Geiger, Helene von |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German opera singer (soprano) and stage actress |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1785 or 1786 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Danzig |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 21, 1818 |
| Place of death | Munich |