Helga Dernesch

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Helga Dernesch (b. February 3, 1939 in Vienna) is an Austrian soprano and mezzo soprano.

[edit] Life and Career

Dernesch studied at the Conservatory in Vienna, before making her debut in 1961 singing Marina in Boris Godunov in Berne. She continued to sing in Berne from 1961 to 1963, in Wiesbaden 1964-1965 and in Cologne from 1966-1969. She made her first appearance in Bayreuth (as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser) in 1967 and her first appearance at the Salzburg Easter Festival in 1969.

Her career has taken her through four successive phases: from mezzo-soprano to lyric soprano to dramatic soprano and back to mezzo again. (For a detailed discussion of these terms, see Voice type).

Since her debut, she has appeared in most of the world's great opera houses, including Zürich, Amsterdam, Glyndebourne, London, Paris, San Francisco, New York and Chicago in such roles as Leonore in Fidelio, Sieglinde and Brünnhilde in Die Walküre, Isolde in Tristan und Isolde, The Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten , Clytemnestra in Elektra, Kabanicha in Káťa Kabanová, The Countess in Pique Dame, Larina in Eugen Onegin. She continued to sing regularly at the Bavarian State Opera where she sang her first Marschallin in 1977 and created the role of Goneril in the premiere of Aribert Reimann's Lear in 1978, a role she also sang in several German houses and for San Francisco Opera in 1981. In October 2000, she created the title role in another Reimann opera, Bernarda Albas Haus in Munich.

She made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1985 as Marfa in Khovanshchina and subsequently sang Prince Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus (1986), Herodias in Salome, and in Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Götterdämmerung, Die Frau ohne Schatten (all in 1989). She returned to Met until 1995 for performances of Dialogues des Carmélites, Arabella and Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. She also sang Herodias for the Los Angeles Opera in 1998.

She is married to the Austrian tenor Werner Krenn (b. 1943).

[edit] Recordings

During the late 1960s, Dernesch was a favorite interpreter of Herbert von Karajan, with whom she recorded Siegfried, Götterdämmerung, Tristan und Isolde, and Fidelio - in each case she sang the main female role. While she may not have been able to demonstrate power and steel like her colleague Birgit Nilsson on these recordings, her great emotional expression and her good vocal technique are shown to full advantage. A further highpoint in her discography is her recording of Tannhäuser with Georg Solti.
There exists a live recording of a 1971 performance by Scottish Opera of Der Rosenkavalier sung in English, with Dernesch as the Marschallin, Dame Janet Baker as Octavian and Elizabeth Harwood as Sophie, from the King’s Theatre, Glasgow, conducted by Alexander Gibson.