Dame Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike Schwarzkopf, DBE (German: [eˌliːzabɛt ˈʃvaʁt͡skɔp͡f]; born December 9, 1915; died August 3, 2006) was a German-born singer who later lived in Austria and Britain. She was a lyric soprano, a type of singer known for her high, clear voice. She was one of the best singers of lieder, which are art songs from Germany. She was also famous for performing Viennese operettas, as well as operas by composers such as Mozart, Wagner, and Richard Strauss. After she stopped performing on stage, she taught voice lessons in many countries. She is considered one of the greatest sopranos of the 20th century.

Early life

Schwarzkopf was born on December 9, 1915, in Jarotschin, a town in the area of Posen, Prussia, Germany (now part of Poland), to Friedrich Schwarzkopf and his wife, Elisabeth (born Fröhlich). In 1928, Schwarzkopf made her first opera appearance as Eurydice in a school production of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice in Magdeburg, Germany. In 1934, she began her musical studies at the Berlin Conservatory of Music. Her singing teacher, Lula Mysz-Gmeiner, tried to train her to sing as a mezzo-soprano. Later, Schwarzkopf studied under Maria Ivogün and joined the German Opera in 1938.

Early career

In 1933, after the Nazis gained power in Germany, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf’s father, who was a school principal, was fired from his job because he refused to let a Nazi meeting take place at his school. He was also prevented from working as a teacher again. Before this happened, it was likely that Elisabeth, who was 17 years old at the time, would have studied medicine after passing her Abitur, which is a high school exam. However, because her father was banned from teaching, Elisabeth could not attend university. Instead, she began studying music at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. In 1938, at age 21, she made her first professional performance at the Deutsche Oper Berlin (then called Deutsches Opernhaus) as the Second Flower Maiden in Richard Wagner’s Parsifal. In 1940, she received a full contract with the Deutsches Opernhaus, but a condition of this contract was that she must join the Nazi Party.

The topic of Schwarzkopf’s relationship with the Nazi Party was first discussed in a 1982 dissertation by Austrian historian Oliver Rathkolb. Since then, this issue has been widely debated in media and books. Critics have pointed out that Schwarzkopf gave different answers over time about her membership in the NSDAP (Member No. 7,548,960). At first, she denied being a member, but later she explained her actions in various ways. In one explanation, she said she joined the party only because her father, who had previously been fired for opposing Nazi activities, insisted she do so.

Other writings have examined Schwarzkopf’s performances during the war, including concerts held before Nazi Party meetings and for groups in the Waffen-SS. Supporters of Schwarzkopf argue that she always kept her art separate from politics and that she did not take an active role in Nazi activities.

In 1942, Schwarzkopf was invited to perform at the Vienna State Opera. She sang roles such as Konstanze in Mozart’s The Abduction from the Seraglio, Musetta and later Mimì in Puccini’s La Bohème, and Violetta in Verdi’s La Traviata.

Schwarzkopf appeared in four short roles in films produced by Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda. However, she was not a film star; she was only a voice actor in these movies.

Post-war career

In 1947, Schwarzkopf received Austrian citizenship to allow her to perform internationally with the Vienna State Opera. In 1947 and 1948, she performed with the Vienna State Opera at London's Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on September 16, 1947, as Donna Elvira in Mozart's Don Giovanni, and at La Scala on December 28, 1948, as the Countess in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, which became one of her most important roles.

Schwarzkopf made her official debut at the Royal Opera House on January 16, 1948, as Pamina in Mozart's The Magic Flute, performed in English, and at La Scala on June 29, 1950, singing Beethoven's Missa solemnis. Her work with La Scala in the early 1950s allowed her to perform certain roles on stage for the first and only time in her career: Mélisande in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, Iole in Handel's Hercules, Marguerite in Gounod's Faust, Elsa in Wagner's Lohengrin, her first Marschallin in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier, and her first Fiordiligi in Mozart's Così fan tutte at the Piccola Scala. On September 11, 1951, she performed as Anne Trulove in the world premiere of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress. Schwarzkopf made her American concert debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on October 28 and 29, 1954, performing Strauss's Four Last Songs and the closing scene from Capriccio with Fritz Reiner conducting. Her Carnegie Hall debut was a lieder recital on November 25, 1956. Her American opera debut was with the San Francisco Opera on September 20, 1955, as the Marschallin, and her debut at the Metropolitan Opera was on October 13, 1964, also as the Marschallin.

In March 1946, Schwarzkopf was invited to audition for Walter Legge, a British classical record producer and founder of the Philharmonia Orchestra. Legge asked her to sing Hugo Wolf's lied Wer rief dich denn? and, impressed, signed her to an exclusive contract with EMI. They formed a close partnership, and Legge later became Schwarzkopf's manager and companion. They married on October 19, 1953, in Epsom, Surrey, which granted Schwarzkopf British citizenship by marriage. For the rest of her career, she balanced lieder recitals and opera performances. In 1958, when asked to select eight favorite records on the BBC's Desert Island Discs, Schwarzkopf chose seven of her own recordings and one of Karajan conducting the Rosenkavalier prelude, as they reminded her of people she had worked with.

In the 1960s, Schwarzkopf focused almost entirely on five operatic roles: Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro, Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte, Countess Madeleine in Strauss's Capriccio, and the Marschallin. She was also well received as Alice Ford in Verdi's Falstaff. On EMI, she recorded several "champagne operetta" works, such as Franz Lehár's The Merry Widow and Johann Strauss II's The Gypsy Baron.

Schwarzkopf's final operatic performance was as the Marschallin on December 31, 1971, at La Monnaie in Brussels. For the next few years, she performed only lieder recitals. On March 17, 1979, Walter Legge suffered a severe heart attack. He ignored medical advice to rest and attended Schwarzkopf's final recital two days later in Zurich. Three days after that, he passed away.

Retirement and death

After retiring shortly after her husband passed away, Schwarzkopf taught and gave special classes in many places worldwide, especially at the Juilliard School in New York City. After living in Ascona, Switzerland, for many years, she moved to Austria. She was given a doctor of music degree by the University of Cambridge in 1976 and became a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1992.

Schwarzkopf passed away in her sleep on the night of August 2–3, 2006, at her home in Schruns, Vorarlberg, Austria, at the age of 90. Her ashes, along with those of Walter Legge, were placed next to her parents in Zumikon near Zürich, where she lived from 1982 to 2003.

Legacy

Schwarzkopf's collection of music recordings is large and includes many high-quality works. Her performances in operas by Mozart and Richard Strauss are especially notable. She made two widely sold recordings of Strauss's Four Last Songs, and her recordings of lieder, particularly those by Wolf, are also well-known.

Schwarzkopf is often seen as the best German lyric soprano of the 20th century and one of the top Mozart singers ever, with a voice described as "indescribably beautiful."

Her entry in The Grove Book of Opera Singers states: "Although she said joining the Nazi Party was necessary for her career, her reputation has suffered because it seems she was actively involved with the party." Charles Scribner III, in The New Criterion, argues that Schwarzkopf's membership was due to her father being an anti-Nazi dissident who feared the authorities.

Awards

• 1950: Received the Lilli Lehmann Medal from the Mozarteum International Foundation in Salzburg
• 1959: Received the "Orfeo d'Oro" award in Mantua (?).
• 1969: Received the Orphée d'or recording award from the Académie du disque lyrique in Paris.
• 1961: Received the Edison Award in Amsterdam.
• 1961: Was awarded the title of Deutsche Kammersängerin.
• 1964: Became an honorary member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.
• 1967: Received the Stockholm television award for best European soprano, Stockholmer.
• 1971: Received the Hugo-Wolf Medal.
• 1974: Received the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany.
• 1982: Received the Mozart Medal from the city of Frankfurt am Main.
• 1983: Became an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera and received the title of Kammersängerin.
• 1986: Was named Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
• 1991: Received the UNESCO Mozart Medal.
• 1992: Was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to music.
• 2002: Received the Honorary Medal of the City of Vienna [de].
• 2012: Was voted into the Gramophone Hall of Fame.

Quotations

• (After being asked about Peter Sellars) "There are names I do not want mentioned in my home. Do not say that name in my presence. I have seen what he has done, and it is illegal. As my husband used to say, so far no one has dared go into the Louvre Museum to deface the Mona Lisa, but some opera directors are defacing masterpieces." – Newsweek interview, 15 October 1990
• "Many composers today don't know what the human throat is. At Bloomington, Indiana, I was invited to listen to music written with unusual musical notes for four harps and voices. I felt very ill and had to leave." – Newsweek interview, 15 October 1990
• (Asked in 1995 if she would sing in the cultural climate of the 1990s if she were much younger) "It's a kind of exploitation now. There is nobody I envy. There's a loss of honesty in our profession."

Recordings

• Recital at Carnegie Hall (1956), EMI in "Great Performances of the Century", 1989

• St Matthew Passion, conducted by Klemperer, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra (Warner Classics, 1961)

• A German Requiem, conducted by Klemperer, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra (Warner Classics, 1961)

• Hänsel und Gretel, conducted by Karajan (1953), Naxos 8.110897-98

• Das Land des Lächelns, conducted by Ackermann (1953), and excerpts from Lehár Operettas, Naxos 8.111016-17
• Die lustige Witwe, conducted by Kunz and Gedda (1953), Naxos 8.111007

• Don Giovanni, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra (Warner Classics, 1959), with Joan Sutherland as Donna Anna. For details, see Don Giovanni (Giulini recording).
• Le nozze di Figaro, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra (Warner Classics, 1959). For details, see Le Nozze di Figaro (Giulini 1959 recording).
• Così fan tutte, conducted by Otto and Karajan (1954), Naxos 8.111232-34. For details, see Così fan tutte (Herbert von Karajan recording).
• Die Zauberflöte, conducted by Otto Klemperer (1960), EMI 5673852. She plays the First Lady.
• Die Entführung aus dem Serail, conducted by Rudolf Moralt (1949), Gala GL100.501

• Turandot as Liù, conducted by Tullio Serafin, performed by La Scala Orchestra (1957, EMI Classics), with Callas as Turandot

• Die Fledermaus, conducted by Gedda and Karajan (1955), Naxos 8.111036-37
• Der Zigeunerbaron, conducted by Gedda, Prey, and Kunz (1954), performed by Otto Ackermann, Philharmonia Orchestra & Chorus, EMI Classics 67535 ADD monaural 2CDs: 56:00, 44:11

• Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by Herbert von Karajan (1956), EMI 77357. The Marschallin was considered her signature-role.
• Four Last Songs / Arabella (highlights), conducted by Ackermann and Matacic (1953, 1954), Naxos 8.111145
• Four Last Songs, conducted by Szell (1965), Warner Classics "Great Recordings of the Century", Cat: 0724356696020
• Ariadne auf Naxos, conducted by Streich and Karajan (1954), Naxos 8.111033-34
• Capriccio, performed by Christa Ludwig, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Nicolai Gedda, and Wolfgang Sawallisch (1957), Warner Classics CDS 7 49014-8

• Messa da Requiem, conducted by Di Stefano and De Sabata (1954), Naxos 8.111049-50

• Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, conducted by Karajan (1951), Naxos 8.110872-75

Video

She appears in two recorded performances as the Marschallin:

• Schwarzkopf Seefried Fischer-Dieskau, a black-and-white DVD featuring three singers. Schwarzkopf performs the Act I Finale from the opera Der Rosenkavalier. This performance was filmed in London in 1961. It is published by Warner Classics with catalog number DVB 4904429.

• Der Rosenkavalier: the Film, a color videotape/DVD of a full-length performance. This version was conducted by Herbert von Karajan with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra during the 1961 Salzburg Festival. The cast includes Sena Jurinac, Anneliese Rothenberger, Otto Edelmann, and Erich Kunz. The film was directed by Paul Czinner. It is published by KULTUR with ASIN: B0043988GM.