Teresa Stratas

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Teresa Stratas OC (born May 26, 1938, Toronto, Ontario), is a Canadian soprano.

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[edit] Early life and career

She was born Anastasia Stratakis to a struggling immigrant Greek family in Toronto, Ontario. At age 13, she performed Greek pop songs on the radio. She graduated from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. At age 20, Stratas made her professional opera debut as Mimì in La bohème at the Toronto Opera Festival. One year later in 1959, she co-won the Metropolitan Opera auditions, appearing later that year with the company as Poussette in Manon. She created the title role in Peggy Glanville-Hicks' Nausicaa at the Herod Atticus Theatre in Athens in 1961, made her Covent Garden debut as Mimì that same year and in 1962, she made her La Scala debut as Isabella in Manuel de Falla's L'Atlántida. She continued her career with the Metropolitan Opera, moved into leading roles and performed with leading opera houses around the world, including the Bolshoi, Vienna State, Berlin, Bavarian State (Munich), Paris and San Francisco Operas as well as the Salzburg Festival.

Her repertoire also included Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Despina in Così fan tutte, Cherubino and Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro, Liù in Turandot, Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, Micaëla in Carmen, Marguerite in Faust, the title role in La Périchole, Gretel in Hansel and Gretel, Lisa in The Queen of Spades, The Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, Antonia in Les contes d'Hoffmann, Mélisande in Pelléas et Mélisande, Marenka in The Bartered Bride, Desdemona in Otello, Mme Lidoine in Dialogues des Carmélites and Jenny Smith in Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny (directed by John Dexter).

[edit] Career highlights

Among her career highlights was the creation of the role of Sardulla in the US premiere of Menotti's The Last Savage (Met, 1964). In 1974, she made a film (directed by Götz Friedrich) of Strauss' Salome with the Vienna Philharmonic under Karl Böhm. Pierre Boulez chose her to sing the title role in the first performance of the completed version of Alban Berg's Lulu (Paris, 1979). On 26 September 1989, she sang all three soprano roles in Puccini's Trittico, Giorgetta in Il tabarro, Angelica in Suor Angelica and Lauretta in Gianni Schicchi (Met). She created the role of Marie Antoinette in the premiere of John Corigliano's The Ghosts of Versailles (Met, 1991). At the opening night of the Met's 1994 season, she sang Nedda in Pagliacci opposite Luciano Pavarotti and Giorgetta in Il tabarro opposite Plácido Domingo.

Over the course of her thirty-six year career at the Metropolitan Opera, she appeared in 385 performances of 41 different roles. Her most frequently performed roles at the house include Liu in Turandot (27 performances between 1961 and 1995), Nedda in Pagliacci (27 performances between 1963 and 1994) and Mimì in La bohème (26 performances between 1962 and 1982). Her final performance with the company was on December 9, 1995, as Jenny in The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny. She was engaged to sing Marenka in a revival of The Bartered Bride during the 1996-97 season, but withdrew from all of the performances prior to opening night, and subsequently never returned to the house again.

Whilst rehearsing for Mahagonny in 1979, Stratas met Kurt Weill's widow, Lotte Lenya. Lenya gave her the scores of previously unpublished Weill songs, some of which Stratas later recorded on two albums, The Unknown Kurt Weill and Stratas Sings Weill.

She also starred in several film adaptations of operas, including Amahl and the Night Visitors (1978), La traviata and Pagliacci (both 1982).

In the 1980s Stratas travelled to Calcutta and worked with Blessed Mother Teresa in an orphanage and at the Kalighat Home for the Dying. In the 1990s she again took time from her career to move into a Romanian hospital to clean cots and wash and care for the sick and dying orphans.

[edit] Awards and recognition

[edit] Selected discography

  • Alban Berg's Lulu Stratas, Yvonne Minton, Hannah Schwarz, Franz Mazura, Kenneth Riegel, Robert Tear, Orchestre de l'Opéra de Paris, cond. Pierre Boulez. Deutsche Grammophon, (1981)
  • Kern and Hammerstein's Show Boat (1988, EMI) - as Julie
  • Teresa Stratas - The Unknown Kurt Weill Nonesuch 79019
  • Stratas Sings Weill, Nonesuch 79131
  • September Songs: The Music of Kurt Weill (1997, Sony Classical)
  • Verdi, La Traviata. Stratas, Fritz Wunderlich, Hermann Prey. Cond. Giuseppe Patanè. Orfeo, 1965. Live performance.
  • Peggy Glanville-Hicks: Nausicaa, Scenes from the Opera. Stratas, Athens Symphony Orchestra & Chorus
  • Jerome Kern, Showboat. Stratas, Frederica von Stade, Jerry Hadley & Lillian Gish. Ambrosian Chorus & London Sinfonietta, cond. John McGlinn. EMI.

[edit] Selected filmography

  • La bohème (1982) - as Mimì, with José Carreras and Renata Scotto, directed by Franco Zeffirelli
  • Pagliacci (1982) - as Nedda, with Domingo, directed by Zeffirelli
  • La Traviata (1983) - as Violetta, with Domingo and Cornell MacNeil, directed by Zeffirelli
  • Stratasphere: Portrait of Teresa Stratas (1989) - documentary
  • Cosi Fan Tutte . Stratas, Edita Gruberová, Luis Lima, Ferruccio Furlanetto, Vienna Philharmonic, cond. Nikolaus Harnoncourt. Directed by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle. Deutsche Grammophon

[edit] Sources

[edit] External links

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