Oberon's Glade

Tag: Berlin State Opera

  • Marina Prudenskaya

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    Born in St. Petersburg, Marina Prudenskaya’s career has centered at Stuttgart (2007-2013) and more recently at the Berlin State Opera. Her vast repertoire has included Bradamante (Alcina), Clitemnestre (Iphigénie en Aulide), Adalgisa (Norma), Fenena (Nabucco), Federica (Luisa Miller), Amneris (Aida), Carmen, Waltraute (Götterdämmerung), Octavian, Azucena, Eboli, Ulrica, Venus in Tannhäuser, Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde), Lyubasha (The Tsar’s Bride), Marie (Wozzeck), Composer (Ariadne auf Naxos), Hansel, and Mother Goose (The Rake’s Progress). 

    She has sung at La Scala, the Mariinsky, and Bayreuth, and in 2017 she sang Amneris at Washington DC. Ms. Prudenskaya caught my attention while watching a DVD of Rheingold from La Scala, conducted by Daniel Barenboim: as Flosshilde (a role she’s also sung at Bayreuth), the mezzo sings lushly and moves with the grace of a dancer.

    Marina Prudenskaya – Rimsky-Korsakov ~ Across the Midnight Sky

  • Delia Reinhardt

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    Delia Reinhardt, mostly forgotten today, was born in 1892. She was ‘discovered’ by Bruno Walter, who invited her to join the Munich Court Opera. In the mid 1920s she moved on to the Berlin State Opera, where she became a very popular soprano.

    Reinhardt’s career suffered under the Nazi regime because her second husband was Jewish; she was an out-spoken critic of Hitler. Reinhardt survived the war, despite her house having been destroyed by a bomb in 1943. With the help of Bruno Walter, with whom she was romantically involved, she managed to flee Germany to Switzerland. and then to America, where she became fairly well-known for her paintings. She later moved back to Switzerland, where she died in 1974.

    These excerpts from Act I of WALKURE show Reinhardt’s deeply feminine vocal quality and wonderful expressiveness: an ideal Sieglinde.

    Delia Reinhardt as Sieglinde