Maria Stader

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Maria Stader, at the height of her career, in early 1965

Maria Stader (born November 5, 1911 in Budapest , Austria-Hungary ; † April 27, 1999 in Zurich ; born Maria Molnár ) was a Swiss opera singer ( lyric soprano ).

Life

Maria Stader signature.jpg

Maria Molnár suffered with her parents and four siblings from the hardship of the First World War and came to foster parents in Switzerland with the Salvation Army in 1919 as part of the Children's Aid for Hungary . Through their mediation, she later took on the Stader family in Romanshorn , whom she adopted in 1928.

Maria Stader and son Martin (left) with godchild, July 1950 on Rigi Klösterli in front of Hotel Sonne

In 1939 Maria Stader married Hans Erismann, the music director of Weinfelden and later choir director of the Zurich City Theater . She met the Schulthess-Geyer couple through the husband of their singing teacher, Mathilde Bärlocher. Stefi Geyer took them on very seriously. Her singing teacher, Ilona Durigo , introduced her to the couple Hermann and Lily Reiff (a Liszt student). At Reiffs, Buschs, Walters and Thomas Mann's family frequented the whole corona of the city theater and the theater . Through the mediation of Fritz Busch , Maria Stader came to the Schnabel School a few years later in Tremezzo. Maria Stader was good friends with the Swiss politician Walther Bringolf as well as with numerous musicians and other artists, in particular with Ferenc Fricsay (whom she had met through Rolf Liebermann ), also with Clara Haskil and with the film director Emil-Edwin Reinert . She was in correspondence with Albert Schweitzer .

Maria Stader lived in Zurich, in the Hirslanden district , where she stayed with her husband and their children Martin and Roland in the 1950s and 1960s. At that time she had a house built on Rigi Kaltbad above Lake Lucerne , the “ Pamina ” chalet . Many of her friends, singers, conductors and intellectuals met there in the spirit of music and the mountain air. In the seventies she was at home in Pfäffikon . Until the end of her life she lived in the old town of Zurich, on the Schipfe in the Lindenhof district .

education

Maria Stader had her first singing lessons with Mathilde Baerbacher-Keller from St. Gallen and from 1930 with her father, Hans Keller, in Konstanz . From 1935 she trained with Ilona Durigo in Zurich, afterwards she took lessons in Tremezzo with Therese Schnabel-Behr, Artur Schnabel's wife , and from 1938 with Giannina Arangi-Lombardi in Milan , through which she became part of a long line of belcanto, the family tree of Belcanto since 1659 . In this family tree of Belcanto, which begins with the castrato Pistocchi in 1659 and seamlessly lists all master-pupil relationships up to Stader, famous names such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart can also be found. Thanks to the singing technique conveyed by Arangi-Lombardi, it was therefore no wonder that Maria Stader in particular did justice to Mozart's music in a perfect way.

Importance and career

Above all, she achieved fame as a Mozart interpreter and for her fruitful collaboration with the Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay in performances of Don Giovanni , Le nozze di Figaro , The Abduction from the Seraglio , the Great Mass , but also the Verdi Requiem . She was also an excellent interpreter of Bach , primarily with Karl Richter and Ferenc Fricsay. They also took Karel Ančerl the Requiem by Antonín Dvořák on and with Hans Kempe Fidelio (as Marcellina).

In 1940 she made her debut at the Zurich City Theater as Olympia in Hoffmann's Tales and was soon praised for her noble, if not very powerful voice. The artist appeared on the opera stage only exceptionally and only in a few roles, as her small, petite figure - she was only 1.44 m tall - restricted her stage repertoire. Her great star role was the Queen of the Night in the Magic Flute , which she sang at the Vienna State Opera , in 1949/50 at the Covent Garden Opera in London and also at the Zurich City Theater. In 1956 she sang the title role in Lucia di Lammermoor under Ferenc Fricsay in 22 (concertante) performances in Israel .

She was therefore able to save herself the exertion of energy that some singers consume and to keep her voice fresh and delicate into the 1960s. In 1969 she said goodbye to the concert stages; in Zurich she was accompanied by her compatriot Géza Anda . For the very last time she was heard on December 7, 1969 in the Mozart Requiem at the Philharmonic Hall in New York. Her concert tours had taken her around the world; in addition to Europe and America, she also performed in Japan, South Africa and South America. Maria Stader was a guest at various festivals, such as the Salzburg Festival (1947–1962), the Lucerne Festival , the Aspen Festival; she was invited by Pablo Casals to the Prades Festival. She sang under the direction of many well-known conductors such as Eugen Jochum , Josef Krips , Eugene Ormandy , George Szell , Carl Schuricht , Rafael Kubelík , Bruno Walter , Hermann Scherchen , Otto Klemperer , Ernest Ansermet and Dean Dixon . Stader mainly had Rita Streich , Kim Borg , Ernst Haefliger , Josef Greindl , Kieth Engen and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as singing partners. In a way, she was Hertha Töpper's high counterpart . Maria Stader had taught at the Zurich Conservatory until 1951 and later led master classes at the opera.

Quote

«Singing must be the natural language of the singer. The listener must have the feeling that the human being who is singing in front of him is incapable of expressing himself other than by singing . My ideal of an opera performance is to have the impression that I am in spoken theater.
The sound, coming from above, must always be concentrated on the front of the skull and projected out into the open, as if through the eye of a needle in the upper half of the face. "
Maria Stader: Take my thanks

Awards

Publications

  • Ferenc Fricsay. In: Martin Müller, Wolfgang Mertz (Ed.): Servant of Music. Unforgettable soloists and conductors of our time in the mirror of friends. Wunderlich, Tübingen 1965.
  • Cooperation with Fricsay. In: Friedrich Herzfeld (Ed.): Ferenc Fricsay. A memorial book. Rembrandt, Berlin 1964.
  • About Wilhelm Furtwängler . In: Furtwängler Recalled. Atlantis, Zurich 1965.
  • Johann Sebastian Bach, aria «My Savior wants to die for love», St. Matthew Passion. Photos by Roland Erismann. With a sheet music supplement and two records as well as a discography. Panton, Zurich 1967 ( Wie Meister üben. 3 series).
  • Take my thanks. Memories. Retold by Robert D. Abraham. With repertoire, record index and name register. Kindler, Munich 1979, ISBN 3-463-00744-4 .

literature

Web links

Commons : Maria Stader  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Stader, Maria
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Molnár, Maria (maiden name); Erismann, Maria (married name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss opera singer (lyric soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH November 5, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 1999
Place of death Zurich