Waltraud Meier sings her last
OperaAfter a 40-year international career, the great mezzo-soprano returned home to Wurzburg to give her final concert.
Review here.
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7/11/14/20 October 2023
ELEKTRA
MUSICAL DIRECTOR
Markus Poschner
DIRECTOR
Patrice Chéreau
KLYTÄMNESTRA
Waltraud Meier
ELEKTRA
Ricarda Merbeth
CHRYSOTHEMIS
Vida Miknevičiūtė
AEGISTH
Stephan Rügamer
OREST
Lauri Vasar
DER PFLEGER DES OREST
David Wakeham
DIE VERTRAUTE, DIE AUFSEHERIN
Cheryl Studer
DIE SCHLEPPTRÄGERIN
Natalia Skrycka
EIN JUNGER DIENER
Siyabonga Maqungo
EIN ALTER DIENER
Olaf Bär
MAIDS
Bonita Hyman , Natalia Skrycka , Katharina Kammerloher , Anna Samuil , Roberta Alexander
Simply, one of the greatest. It was a privilege to attend one of her performances. Those in Berlin in 2002 at Die Walkure will not forget her singing both Sieglinde and Fricka at the same performance.
What a great artist. On my first trip to Bayreuth in 1999, she sang Isolde in Barenboim’s final appearance there. If memory serves, the ovation lasted close to fifty minutes. She had a warmth and humanity lacking in some other Wagner sopranos, and wow she could act. May she enjoy recalling her triumphs as she approaches her retirement.
I wonder if any singer has sung Isolde more times than Waltraud. She was truly one of the best I’ve ever seen and heard in that role.
Ah, yes, her Isolde. I saw her La Scala performance with Barenboim in 2007. The Liebestod (and this was the production with blood streaming down her face) was simply sublime. I’ll never forget that voice soaring above the orchestra.
Absolutely one of the greatest, and one of the singers I feel most privileged to have heard in my opera-going life. I managed to catch her multiple times in the late 1990s, arguably her prime, and she was always utterly thrilling.
I saw her as Sieglinde, Isolde (epic!), Eboli (brilliantly sung in Italian, and more secure in the role than on the EMI set from Paris), Santuzza, Carmen (just OK) and, to my great surprise, the Komponist in Ariadne auf Naxos.
The last was in 1999 in Vienna and she was absolutely perfect in the part. The tessitura gave her no trouble at all and she looked great in 18C men’s costume. And to hear a voice of her size easily crest Strauss’s chamber-ish orchestral textures was unforgettable.
Her voice was richer and more secure in person than it sometimes sounds on recordings. If anyone deserves a great retirement (next year, or whenever), it is she.
Waltraud Meir shared a musical idea with me in 1987 which changed the way I approached every phrase to this very say. For the sake of clarity, it was not her intention to be kind or nurturing in her suggestion by any means. Regardless of her approach, I am grateful and remain honored to have had the benefit of being in the presence of such a great artist.
Probably the greatest Wagnerian interpreter/performer of the post 40 years, the most compelling Kundry, Ortrud etc. of my lifetime.
What a carreer and aspirational woman! I was touched by many of her performances. It strikes me always as unfair, how relatively young singer artist personalities have to retire, best case to teaching, while many instrumentalists and conductors can keep achieving and get even better and wiser at a much higher age.