Helga Dernesch | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1939-02-03)3 February 1939 (age 86) Vienna, Austria |
| Education | Vienna Hochschule für Musik |
| Occupation | Opera singer |
| Organizations | |
Helga Dernesch (born 3 February 1939) is an Austriansoprano andmezzo-soprano. Her career has taken her through four successive phases: from mezzo-soprano tolyric soprano todramatic soprano, and after about 1980 back to mezzo again. "Her voice had great richness and power, and her strikingly handsome stage appearance and intense acting made her a compelling performer."[1]
Born in Vienna, Dernesch studied at theVienna Hochschule für Musik before making her debut in 1961 singing Marina inBoris Godunov inBern. She continued to sing in Bern from 1961 to 1963, inWiesbaden 1963-1965 and at theCologne Opera from 1965 to 1968.[1] She made her first appearance inBayreuth (asWellgunde inDer Ring des Nibelungen) in 1965. Two years later she was singing Elisabeth inTannhäuser there, and Sieglinde with the Bayreuth Festival on tour in Osaka. She made her first appearance at theSalzburg Easter Festival in 1969. WithScottish Opera she performedGutrune (1968), her firstLeonore (1970), theMarschallin (1971),Brünnhilde,Isolde,Ariadne, andCassandra.[1]
She has also appeared in most of the world's other great opera houses, includingZürich,Amsterdam,Glyndebourne,London,Paris,San Francisco,New York andChicago in such roles as Leonore, Sieglinde and Brünnhilde inDie Walküre, Isolde, The Dyer's Wife inDie Frau ohne Schatten, Clytemnestra inElektra, Kabanicha inKáťa Kabanová, The Countess inPique Dame, and Larina inEugen Onegin. She continued to sing regularly at theBavarian State Opera where she sang the Marschallin in 1979 and created the role of Goneril in the premiere ofAribert Reimann'sLear in 1978, a role she also sang in several other German houses and, in an English translation, atSan Francisco Opera in 1981. In October 2000, she created the title role in another Reimann opera,Bernarda Albas Haus in Munich.
She made herMetropolitan Opera debut in 1985 as Marfa inKhovanshchina and subsequently sang Prince Orlofsky inDie Fledermaus (1986), Herodias inSalome, Fricka inDas Rheingold andDie Walküre, Waltraute inGötterdämmerung, and the NurseDie Frau ohne Schatten (all during the 1989-1990 season). She returned to Met in 1994 for performances as Madame de Croissy inDialogues des Carmélites and Adelaide inArabella, and in 1995 as Leocadia Begbick inRise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny.[2]
In 1998 she sangHerodias for theLos Angeles Opera, and in 2009 she appeared as Grandmother Buryjovka inJenufa at theBavarian State Opera.
She is married to the AustriantenorWerner Krenn (born 1943).
