It is so difficult for me to comprehend that Hildegard Behrens has died. She was only 72 and it seems not all that long ago that my friend Bryan and I visited her in her dressing room after what was to be her final Met performance as Marie in Berg's WOZZECK.
Hildegard Behrens was one of a half-dozen singers who, in the nearly half-century that I've been immersed in the world of opera, made an impression that transcended mere vocalism and acting. Her voice was utterly her own: a ravaged, astringent quality often beset her timbre - the price of having given so unsparingly of her instrument in some of opera's most taxing roles. And yet she could produce phrases of stupendously haunting beauty, and she could suddenly pull a piano phrase out of mid-air. Her unique mixture of raw steely power, unmatched personal intensity and a deep vein of feminine vulnerability made her performances unforgettable even when the actual sound of the voice was less than ingratiating.
So many memories are flooding back this morning while I am thinking about her: the Wesendonck Lieder she sang at Tanglewood during my 'Wagner summer'...a rare chance to hear her miscast but oddly moving singing of the Verdi REQUIEM...her televised RING Cycle from the Met...her wildly extravagant 'mad scene' in Mozart's IDOMENEO...her passionate Tosca and Santuzza, cast against the vocal norm...a solo recital at Carnegie Hall...the dress rehearsal of the Met revival of her ELEKTRA where she made up (and how!) for an off-night at the premiere. Hildegard Behrens was also the holder of the Lotte Lehmann Ring which was left to her by her great colleague Leonie Rysanek upon Rysanek's untimely death in 1998.
It was in fact the Behrens Elektra, sung in concert at Tanglewood with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Seiji Ozawa in August 1988 that has always seemed to me the very epitome of what an operatic portrayal can be. In a black gown and violently teased hair, the soprano (announced as being indisposed by allergies) transformed a stand-and-deliver setting into a full-scale assault on the emotions. I'll never forget that performance and I was fortunate a week later to record it from a delayed broadcast.
In the great scene in which Elektra recognizes her long-lost brother, Behrens transported me right out of this mortal world. Here it is, from her 1994 Met performance with Donald McIntyre.
It's going to be hard for me now to listen to Hildegard - her Berlioz Nuits d'Ete is my favorite recording of those beloved songs, unconventional as her voice sounds in that music - or to watch her on film as Brunnhilde or Elektra. For a while I will just let the memories play.
Tosca.
Marie in WOZZECK.
Elektra.
Brunnhilde
In concert with Daniel Barenboim.
A favorite Hildegard Behrens recording: Berlioz & Ravel.
Didn't Zeffirelli refuse to direct "Tosca" after doing it for Callas - until Behrens came along?
And James Levine once said that many other sopranos sang Brunnhilde better than Behrens, but that none of them made him care for the Valkyries' troubles more than she did.
She's one of the very few singers I regret not seeing live. By the time she was ending her Met career I was not yet the Wagner fan I am now, so I didn't go. I've always kicked myself for that! Even on records, though, I love listening to Behrens. (But not Callas.) So thank you Hildegard, and goodbye.
Posted by: Dmitry | August 19, 2009 at 08:17 AM
People sometimes referred to Behrens as 'the German Callas' since they both has unconventional voices but were able to communicate so much of whatever character they were singing.
One of my favorite Hildegard highlights is a brief interview she gave from Bayreuth when the Met were celebrating their 100th anniversary. Because of other commitments in October, Hilde could not appear at the Met Gala but her message of greeting and her assertion that 'music makes the soul swing' are so lovely. In a way she was sort of a 'flower child', a throw-back to an earlier era.
Behrens was to have opened the Levine 25th anniversary gala singing
'Dich teure halle' but she was replaced by Deborah Voigt who at that time was the large, luminous-voiced singer we all liked so much.
Posted by: Philip | August 19, 2009 at 09:37 AM