Tag: Claudio Abbado

Above: Claudio Abbado and soprano Janis Martin prior to a performance of Schoenberg’s ERWARTUNG at La Scala, 1980

Following yesterday’s news of the death of Irene Dalis, more sad tidings in the opera world today with the passing of Janis Martin, the American mezzo-turned-soprano, a singer who loomed large in my opera-going career. A Met Auditions winner in 1962 (she sang Dalila’s “Mon coeur s’ouvre a ta voix” at the Winners’ Concert), Martin sang nearly 150 performances at the Metropolitan Opera, commencing in 1962 as Flora Bervoix in TRAVIATA. As a young opera-lover, I heard her many times on the Texaco broadcasts. She eventually progressed to “medium-sized” roles: Siebel, Nicklausse, Lola in CAVALLERIA RUSTICANA. Martin left The Met in 1965 and built a career abroad, moving into soprano territory. She returned to The Met and from 1974 thru 1977; during these seasons, she was my first in-house Kundry, Marie in WOZZECK, and Sieglinde. Another hiatus, and then she was back at Lincoln Center from 1988-1992, singing the Witch in HANSEL & GRETEL, the Dyer’s Wife in FRAU OHNE SCHATTEN, Senta, the Foreign Princess in RUSALKA, and two performances of TOSCA.

In the past couple of months, I’ve taken a renewed interest in Janis Martin’s singing, after first hearing her as Gutrune in a recording of a tremendous GOTTERDAMMERUNG from Bayreuth 1975. This prompted me to pursue her further, acquiring her Senta in a 1972 Vienna HOLLANDER. Waiting in my pile of “to-listen-to” CDs is her WALKURE Fricka, from Bayreuth 1968. I also searched out my old cassettes of her Met broadcast as the Dyer’s Wife (she sings tirelessly, and with great vocal thrust and considerable beauty of tone) and I purchased her commercial recording of ERWARTUNG with Pierre Boulez conducting, which is very impressive.

Janis Martin sings two songs from Hindemith’s Drei Gesänge op.9 here. The songs are “Meine Nächte sind heiser zerschrien” (text by Ernst Wilhelm Lotz), and “Weltende” (text by Else Lasker-Schüler).