Margaret Price

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Dame Margaret Berenice Price , DBE (born April 13, 1941 in Blackwood , Monmouthshire , Wales , † January 28, 2011 near Cardigan ) was a Welsh opera singer ( soprano ).

Life

Margaret Price came from a musical family and started singing at an early age. Actually, she didn't intend to make music a profession, but wanted to become a biology teacher. On the recommendation of her music teacher, she sang Charles Kennedy Scott at the age of 15, who gave her a scholarship. He was able to persuade her to study with him at Trinity College of Music in London, where she was initially mistaken for a mezzo-soprano .

The singer's father, who had initially been against her career choice, managed to find her an engagement at the Welsh National Opera in Cardiff . There she made her debut in 1962 as Cherubino in Mozart's “ Le nozze di Figaro ”.

A year later, Margaret Price received an engagement at the Royal Opera House in London. After she was initially used here in small roles, her big moment came when Teresa Berganza had to cancel a performance of Figaro's wedding at short notice due to illness. Margaret Price was allowed to step in - again as Cherubino - and started her career with this appearance.

On the recommendation of the conductor and pianist James Lockhart , Price took singing lessons again in the following years and developed her brilliant height that would make her one of the most popular lyric sopranos of the 1970s and 1980s.

From the mid-1960s she had an advocate in the great conductor Otto Klemperer , with whom she made her first major recordings, including a complete recording of “ Così fan tutte ”, in which she took up her first leading role with Fiordiligi .

In the following years she gave guest appearances all over the world, for example from 1985 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, but always looked for a solid base where she spent most of the year. From 1971 her parent company was the operas in Cologne and especially in Munich , where she lived until she withdrew from the stage in 1999.

For her services, she received the title of Bavarian Chamber Singer and was ennobled in 1993 in her home country as a "lady". Most recently, the singer, who said she was a Porsche freak, lived again in a small town in Wales and bred dogs.

repertoire

The main focus of the singer's stage repertoire was always the big roles in Mozart operas, especially Donna Anna in “ Don Giovanni ”, the Contessa in “Figaro's Wedding”, Fiordiligi in “ Così fan tutte ” and Pamina in “The Magic Flute ” .

Later on, Giuseppe Verdi's roles were added, especially Amelia in the “ Masked Ball ”, Elisabetta in “ Don Carlos ” and Desdemona in Otello . Price sang mainly the Marschallin in “ Rosenkavalier ” and Ariadne in “ Ariadne auf Naxos ” by Richard Strauss . Although she also took on unusual roles such as Adriana Lecouvreur from Cilea , her repertoire remained relatively small because she was afraid of overstraining her voice.

The second focus of her work has always been song recitals, especially with works by Franz Schubert , Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Richard Strauss.

Price has made a great many records, both operas and songs, throughout her long career. Perhaps her best-known recording is the complete recording of Richard Wagner's “ Tristan und Isolde ” under Carlos Kleiber , in which she sang Isolde , a role that - also out of consideration for her voice - she never dared on stage, even though it was released after it was released the record got a lot of offers. Her great accompanist was Graham Johnson .

Honors

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-12315183
  2. ↑ According to documents from the Bavarian Ministry of Culture
  3. ↑ Message  ( 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. the London Gazette of December 31, 1992 (English, PDF)@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.thegazette.co.uk  
personal data
SURNAME Price, Margaret
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Price, Margaret Berenice (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION welsh opera singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Blackwood , Monmouthshire , Wales
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 2011
Place of death at cardigan