Oberon's Glade

Tag: Ingrid Bjoner

  • Scenes from a Munich WALKURE

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    Ingrid Bjoner (above) is Brünnhilde in these scenes from a performance of Wagner’s DIE WALKURE from Munich, 1972. The in-house sound quality leaves much to be desired, but I’ve always loved this rendering of the Todesverkündigung as sung by Bjoner and James King.

    There are also three brief excerpts from Act III, with Claire Watson as Sieglinde and Heinz Imdahl as Wotan joining Ingrid Bjoner. Rudolf Kempe’s conducting strikes me as just about ideal.

    WALKURE exc – Munich 1972 – Bjoner King Watson Imdahl – Kempe cond

  • Ingrid Bjoner as Turandot

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    Ingrid Bjoner sent me the above photo of herself as Turandot after I sent her a letter of praise letter after seeing her in this role at The Met in 1974.

    On the back of the photo, Ms. Bjoner wrote:

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    Turandot is a fascinating role, and I have seen many sopranos undertake it over the years since Mary Curtis-Verna was my first icy princess at The Old Met in 1965.

    Birgit Nilsson was, of course, the Turandot of her day. But Ingrid Bjoner made a striking impression with her powerful, silvery sound, and – in truth – her characterization was more complex and interesting than Nilsson’s. I wrote about my impressions of the Bjoner Turandot here.

    And here she is, in a German-language performance:

    Ingrid Bjoner – TURANDOT ~ In questa reggia (in German) with Ludovic Spiess

    ~ Oberon

  • Franziska Martienssen-Lohmann

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    In an on-line quest for something totally unrelated, I came upon this photo of Franziska Martienssen-Lohmann; something about her face intrigued me and I began to search for information about her.  

    Watch a brief video about this lieder singer who became a notable – though now largely forgotten – voice teacher; as prelude, another video links Mme. Martienssen-Lohmann to the great soprano Elisabeth Grummer.

    Mme. Martienssen-Lohmann wrote five books on various aspects of singing; aside from Elisabeth Grummer, other singers who worked with Martiessen-Lohmann included Maria Stader, Ingrid Bjoner, Jutta Vulpius and Judith Beckmann.