THE EDITION THE EDITION 2 für Gundn uula »EEss miissliinggtt einneem immmer, voon ddem zu sprecheen,n waas maann liebtt.« “WWe alwayys fail when speeakking off thah t wwhiicch wwe lovee.” « OOnn échhooue tooujourrs à parrleer ddee ce qquu’on aimee. » Roolannd Baarrthhes 3 A VOICE OF SILVER AND GOLD “And the unwatched soul / Longs to soar aloft freely” Hermann Hesse It was with a heartfelt sigh that Wolfgang Sawallisch She auditioned for Wieland Wagner and was invited to – in an interview that he gave in the early 1990s – sing one of the Flowermaidens in Parsifal the following lamented the fact that after Gundula Janowitz there summer. Prior to that, Walter Legge had recommend- he lavished on us a voice that Manuel Brug once described in Die Welt as “flawlessly pure was no longer a German soprano of any significance ed her to Herbert von Karajan, under whose direction yet as strong as steel”. She had, he went on, “one of those rare voices from heaven that who could sing roles such as Agathe, Elsa, Sieglinde, she made her Vienna State Opera debut as Barbarina Sleave us simply astonished and in whose euphony we can bathe”. Brug was describing the Eva, the Marschallin and Arabella. Barely two decades in Le nozze di Figaro on 8 February 1960. Astute lis- sound and effect of Gundula Janowitz’s voice fifteen years after her career had ended. His memory earlier EMI’s long-standing producer, Walter Legge, teners were as ravished by her performance as they did not deceive him. It is impossible for anyone to express this better than a vocal expert like Brug. had written in the wake of Lotte Lehmann’s death in were by her other roles in Vienna during the early 1976: “If she were active today, with the qualities she 1960s: the First Lady in Die Zauberflöte, Helena in There are three theatrical experiences that I shall never forget and which will never be surpassed. had in the habitual form of her mid-thirties to her mid- Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Voice First there was Janowitz’s Arabella. Here was no enchanting but artificial creation of the kind that forties, most of the presently esteemed ladies in her from Heaven in Don Carlo, a role that the present Lisa Della Casa had been, but a young woman not averse to a little restrained flirtation, natural in line of operatic business would and should have shut writer can still recall her singing. But when Karajan her appearance and affectionate in her dealings with her younger sister. By way of contrast, there up shop.” But he then made an exception: Gundula offered her the role of the Empress in Die Frau ohne Janowitz, who was then at the peak of her powers. Schatten, she was sensible enough to sing it only once was Beethoven’s Leonore with Bernstein on the podium, a passionate woman who from her very These observations help us to define the status and – on 17 June 1964. She always sang with the voice first entrance never doubted that she would succeed in freeing her incarcerated husband – and who position that Gundula Janowitz occupies in the his- that she had, not with the one that she would like to never allowed the spectator to doubt this either. And finally there was the Marschallin in Der Rosen- tory of singing, but they tell us nothing about her voice have had. kavalier: worldly wise, growing old without any sense of self-pity and with a few tears among her and about her personality as a singer. In interviews Gundula Janowitz always stressed smiles. Gundula Janowitz was born in Berlin on 2 August how lucky she was to be able to spend much of her Karl Löbl 1937 and was seven when she started to play the career singing with a permanent ensemble. “In Vienna Translation: texthouse violin. She studied singing in Graz and in 1959 was one generation of Mozart singers hands down the able to visit Bayreuth with the help of a scholarship. tradition to the next one.” She was one of the last 4 singers able to say this and also one of the last to be brilliant, the second the most enchanting and the third able to study these roles under Karl Böhm, Karajan the most powerful. Gundula Janowitz’s voice was a and Josef Krips. Her first international success came lyric soprano of crystalline clarity and the most exqui- in 1963, when she sang Pamina in Aix-en-Provence site timbre, a voice she was able to control to the full and was hailed as a revelation. It was the conductor but which was also capable of remarkable dynamic of these performances, John Pritchard, who then expansion. It is an alloy of two metals. It can gleam like invited her to Glyndebourne, although her Ilia, along- the sun and it can also shine as coolly as the light of the side the Idamante of Luciano Pavarotti, was no more moon. Her intonation is even, her vibrato controlled. Her than a succès d’estime. All the more successful were hallmarks were her top notes, which she began com- her Fiordiligi in Frankfurt and her Agathe at the pletely effortlessly and then allowed to increase in Deutsche Oper in Berlin. volume; the instrumental handling of her voice; and her She opened the very first Salzburg Easter Festival ability to draw the most subtle distinctions between on 18 March 1967, when she sang Sieglinde in Die different degrees of piano and pianissimo. Walküre under Karajan. From the late 1960s until the “When dealing with an important individual,” 1980s she appeared regularly in Berlin and Vienna in wrote Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve, “one must also a repertory that focused on the Countess (Le nozze di have the courage to see everything, to observe Figaro and Capriccio), Donna Anna, Fiordiligi, Agathe, everything or at least to hint at everything.” Unlike Sieglinde, the Marschallin, Arabella and Ariadne. Less Lotte Lehmann, Gundula Janowitz was not what is well known is the fact that she also sang Odabella in colloquially known as a “stage animal”. The “demonic Attila, a role famous for its exorbitant demands, Ame- self-abnegation” that Wagner admired about Wilhel- lia in Simon Boccanegra and Elisabetta in Don Carlo. mine Schröder-Devrient’s portrayal of the role of In Munich she was also heard as Amelia in Un ballo in Beethoven’s Leonore was not for her. But anyone maschera. As live recordings of these performances inclined to reproach her for not being a “passionate” demonstrate, she brought to these parts an impas- singer should bear in mind a comment made by Arnold sioned dramatic intensity that was not always prop- Schoenberg in a letter to the conductor Hermann erly appreciated by listeners at the time, perhaps Scherchen: “Passion’s something everyone can do! because of the timbre of her voice. But inwardness, the chaste, higher form of emotion, The 19th-century French writer Ernest Legouvé seems to be out of most people’s reach. On the whole categorized voices in terms of three different metals: it’s understandable: for the underlying emotion must gold, silver and brass. The first was said to be the most be felt and not merely demonstrated! This too is why 5 all actors have passion and only a very few have help of his recording of Die Walküre. The cast includ- appeal of her silvery timbre. Her performance of the gates of Heaven with her gleaming, angelic top inwardness.” ed Gundula Janowitz as Sieglinde. The term “chamber Fiordiligi in the live recording under Karl Böhm is one notes. As a Lieder recitalist she made a wonderful and The key word here is “emotion”. However justified Ring” was coined to describe the clarity, refinement of the most vivid in all the recordings of Così fan tutte. important contribution to the Schubert discography, we may be in placing Gundula Janowitz in the tradition and beauty of the orchestral playing, and while it Particularly delightful is the contrast between her own following up Fischer-Dieskau’s three sets of releases of Lotte Lehmann, Tiana Lemnitz, Elisabeth Grümmer remains a handy expression, it fails to do full justice white gold timbre and the dark viola-like tone of Bri- with Gerald Moore by recording the women’s songs and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, there are differences of to Karajan’s reading of the work. The fact of the mat- gitte Fassbaender’s voice. Karl Böhm was again the with Irwin Gage. She articulates the texts cleanly and interpretation in the singer’s attitude towards the ter is that Wagner’s orchestra can be appreciated here conductor when she recorded Strauss’s Capriccio. clearly without ever going as far as Elisabeth Schwar- characters that she is portraying, an attitude that finds in all of its fullness of sound, most vividly when what She sings the role of the Countess with a wonderfully zkopf in terms of her verbal acting – notably in Liebe expression in a specific intonation. Lotte Lehmann’s is played and sung pianissimo sounds fortissimo – as controlled voice that floods the ear with its gentle schwärmt auf allen Wegen – or with regard to the impassioned and altogether expressionist portrayal of Karajan paradoxically demanded. This aspect can be tones, while her diction avoids the airs and graces of tone-painterly illumination of the words. a character like Agathe or Sieglinde and the sensibil- heard at its marvellous best in the very first scene, in the grande dame. In Lohengrin, which she recorded Among the jewels of her discography are her ity and inwardness of Elisabeth Grümmer’s account of which Sieglinde and Siegmund draw closer to each under Kubelik in 1971, the concentrated, pure sound recordings of Strauss’s Four Last Songs, to which she the same roles are a reflection of the emotional life of other emotionally and for which Gundula Janowitz and of innocence that she brings to the words “Euch brings the ideal Strauss voice, its silvery gleam fleck- the age in which they were singing.