Inge Borkh

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Inge Borkh , bourgeois Ingeborg Simon (born May 26, 1921 in Mannheim ; died August 26, 2018 in Stuttgart ), was a German opera singer ( soprano ).

Life

Inge Borkh was born under the name Ingeborg Simon . She grew up in a musical family. Her mother, Grete Neumann, daughter of a Viennese opera singer couple, was a coloratura soubrette at the Mannheim National Theater from 1918 until her marriage in 1920 . From 1931, Inge Borkh attended the Liselotte-Gymnasium in Mannheim until she emigrated . Because of the Jewish descent of her father, Franz Simon, she and her family had to emigrate to Geneva in 1935, where she received rhythm, improvisation and piano lessons from Émile Jaques-Dalcroze . In addition to her mother, she was trained by the castle actress Margit von Tolnai at the Max-Reinhardt-Seminar , the dancer Grete Wiesenthal and the pianist Gertrud Wiesenthal in her next refuge, Vienna . In 1936 she passed the exam for the artist's pass at the Ronacher in Vienna and began in 1937 as an actress under the name Inge Simon at the Landestheater Linz . When the family had to flee back to Geneva in 1938, the daughter found her first engagement as an actress in Basel. Here it was the bassist Fritz Ollendorff who discovered her voice and advised her to take training with Vittorio Moratti in Milan. After the brief vocal studies she started in 1940 under the pseudonym Inge Borkh her singing career at the Lucerne Theater , where she worked as Czipra in The Gypsy Baron by Johann Strauss debuted. Even then she grew from the lyrical to the dramatic subject, after the Pamina ( Die Zauberflöte , Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart ) and the Countess ( The Marriage of Figaro , WA Mozart), she soon sang the composer ( Ariadne auf Naxos , Richard Strauss ), Marta ( Tiefland , Eugène d'Albert ), Senta ( The Flying Dutchman , Richard Wagner ), Tosca ( Giacomo Puccini ) or the two Leonores ( Troubadour and The Power of Fate , Giuseppe Verdi ). At the Stadttheater Bern , where she had been engaged since 1945, she worked on the most important roles in her singing career: Salome (March 18, 1947) and Elektra (February 12, 1950) by Richard Strauss. Her international breakthrough came as Magda Sorel in the first German-language performance of Gian Carlo Menotti's opera Der Konsul at the Theater Basel on January 3, 1951, which she sang that same year at the German premiere at the Städtische Oper Berlin , where she from now on was a permanent guest. After the Berlin debut, engagements at leading opera houses around the world soon followed. a. Vienna , Munich , Berlin, London , Milan , New York and San Francisco .

In 1952 she sang Freia and Sieglinde in The Ring of the Nibelung at the Bayreuth Festival . In 1957 she took over at the Salzburg Festival in the title role of Elektra by Richard Strauss .

Inge Borkh left the opera stage relatively early; In 1973 she ended her operatic career in Italy after seven performances in the title role of Richard Strauss's opera Elektra . After that, she returned to the stage for a short time as an actress for spoken theater. In 1977 she played the Volumnia in Coriolanus by William Shakespeare in Hamburg as a partner of Boy Gobert .

After she left the opera stage, she performed as a cabaret artist with solo evenings. During this time, she made a record of her sung memoirs under the title: Inge Borkh sings her memoirs.

She was married to the Yugoslav bass-baritone Alexander Welitsch (1906–1991).

repertoire

She sang mainly in dramatic roles: Aida and Lady Macbeth by Giuseppe Verdi , Tosca and Turandot by Giacomo Puccini , Leonore in Fidelio by Ludwig van Beethoven , Medea in the opera of the same name by Luigi Cherubini , Elsa, Sieglinde and Senta in the musical dramas by Richard Wagner , Elektra, Salome, Egyptian Helena, Empress and Dyer's Wife by Richard Strauss . In the field of modernism, she took over the Antigonae in Carl Orff's opera .

Inge Borkh's complete musical oeuvre, including Antigonae, Turandot, Klytämnestra in Iphigenie in Aulis by Christoph Willibald Gluck , Elektra and Salome, has been re-released on CD in recent years, which has been handed down through radio recordings, live recordings and records .

Awards

literature

Biographies:

  • Thomas Voigt: Not just Salome and Elektra: Inge Borkh in conversation with Thomas Voigt. Allitera, Munich 2006, ISBN 978-3-86520-198-0 and most recently 2011, ISBN 978-3-86906-170-2 .
  • Inge Borkh: I can't get away from the theater. Memories and insights. Henschel Verlag, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-89487-291-8 .
  • Peter Dusek: Backstage talks. Hundreds of world stars of opera tell anecdotes. With CD. Published by the Friends of the Vienna Opera Youth and People. Dachs-Verlag, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-224-16002-0 .
  • Alex Natan: Prima donna. Praise the voice. Basilius Presse, Basel 1962, OCLC 902146110 .

Lexical articles:

Interviews

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Karl J. Kutsch, Leo Riemens: Large singing dictionary . Third, expanded edition. KG Saur, Munich 1999. Volume 1: Aarden-Davis, p. 396; indicate 1921 as the year of birth. In contrast, some music dictionaries (Brockhaus / Riemann, Seeger) name 1917 as the year of birth. Inge Borkh herself states in her memoirs “I can't get away from the theater”, p. 8, likewise 1921 as the year of birth.
  2. ↑ Marianne Zelger-Vogt: Singing to represent: To the death of Inge Borkh. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung, August 26, 2018, accessed on August 26, 2018
  3. ↑ a b Peter Jungblut: Salome's fate role: Soprano Inge Borkh died. In: Bayerischer Rundfunk . August 26, 2018, accessed September 2, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Einhard Luther:  Borkh, Inge. In: Ludwig Finscher (Hrsg.): The music in past and present . Second edition, personal section, volume 3 (Bjelinski - Calzabigi). Bärenreiter / Metzler, Kassel et al. 2000, ISBN 3-7618-1113-6  ( online edition , subscription required for full access)
  5. ↑ a b Inge Borkh: I can't get away from the theater. Memories and insights . Henschel, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-89487-291-8 , pp. 151 f .
  6. ↑ Thomas Blubacher: Inge Borkh . In: Andreas Kotte (Ed.): Theater Lexikon der Schweiz . Volume 1, Chronos, Zurich 2005, ISBN 3-0340-0715-9 , p. 243 f.
  7. ↑ Performances with Inge Borkh at the Vienna State Opera
  8. ↑ Performances with Inge Borkh at the Royal Opera House / Covent Garden in London
  9. ↑ Performances with Inge Borkh at La Scala in Milan
  10. ↑ Performances with Inge Borkh at the Metropolitan Opera in New York
  11. ↑ Performances with Inge Borkh at the San Francisco Opera
  12. ^ Archive of the Bayreuth Festival
  13. ↑ Program details of the performance ( memento of July 2, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) at the Salzburg Festival
  14. ↑ Further performances with Inge Borkh at the Salzburg Festival
personal data
SURNAME Borkh, Inge
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Simon, Ingeborg (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH May 26, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Mannheim
DATE OF DEATH August 26, 2018
Place of death Stuttgart