Brigitte Fassbaender: All my life I suffered from stage fright

The magnificent German mezzo, later an imposing theatre and festival director, gives a rare interview to Zsolt Bognar. Now 85, Brigitte involves her successor as director, Josef Köpplinger, as an intermediary in the conversation.

Brigitte attributes her early retirement from singing to an increase in performance anxiety. ‘I was like a lamb to slaughter,’ she says.

She amplifies: ‘The more you work and the further you come, the more your own responsibility grows. Sometimes you want to stay back and say, I can’t any more. The regeneration of emotional feelings is running out. This is a reason I stopped rather early.’

I was overwhelmed by Brigitte’s candour when we met for a BBC Lebrecht Interview in 2008. Sadly, it is not presently online.

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