Maria Ewing

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Maria Ewing, Lady Hall (born March 27, 1950 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American opera singer who has sung both soprano and mezzo soprano roles.

She studied in Cleveland, Ohio and New York. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in 1976 in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and her first European performance was at La Scala, Milan as Mélisande in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande. Her repertoire includes Carmen, Dorabella in Mozart's Cosi fan tutte, Salome, Marie in Berg's Wozzeck and Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Ewing achieved considerable notoriety in her interpretation of the title role in Richard Strauss's Salome: Oscar Wilde's stage directions for the original play specify that at the end of an unnamed dance (presumably the Dance of the Seven Veils) Salome lies naked at Herod's feet. Most sopranos fudge this by wearing a body stocking under the seventh veil; Ewing does not. She also sang and appeared in Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneus (from Virgil's The Aeneid), filmed at London's Hampton Court Palace. She gives an outstanding performance in Dido's Lament - in which Dido (M.Ewing) is so devastated by the departure of Aenues she stabs herself declaring "Remember Me, But Ah! Forget My Fate". She is then burnt on a pyre. This is arguably her finest performance.

In 1982, she married the English theatre director Sir Peter Hall. The marriage ended in 1990. Their daughter is the actress Rebecca Hall.

Ewing's discography includes video versions of Salome and Carmen, and audio versions of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and Pelléas et Mélisande. She has also recorded concert music by Ravel, Berlioz, and Debussy and programs of popular American song. She played Rosina in il barbiere di Siviglia edited as a DVD by Glyndebourne (1982).