Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Dame Olga Maria Elisabeth Friederike Schwarzkopf (9 December 1915 – 3 August 2006) was a lyric soprano who held German, Austrian, and British citizenship. She ranks among the most celebrated interpreters of lieder, and is especially admired for her work in Viennese operetta and the operas of Mozart, Wagner, and Richard Strauss. After her stage career ended, she taught voice around the world. She is widely regarded as one of the finest sopranos of the 1900s.

Schwarzkopf was born in Jarotschin, then in the Prussian province of Posen, Germany (now in Poland). Her father, Friedrich, was a school headmaster, and her mother was Elisabeth Fröhlich. She first sang in an opera in 1928, playing Eurydice in a school production of Gluck’s *Orfeo ed Euridice* in Magdeburg. In 1934 she began studying at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik, where her teacher Lula Mysz-Gmeiner tried to train her as a mezzo-soprano. She later studied with Maria Ivogün, and in 1938 joined the Deutsche Oper.

In 1933, after the Nazis took power, Schwarzkopf’s father was fired from his headmaster post for refusing to allow a Nazi party meeting at his school, and was banned from any new teaching job. Before his dismissal, the 17-year-old Elisabeth had expected to study medicine after her Abitur; but as the daughter of a banned teacher, she was barred from university, so she turned to music at the Berlin Hochschule. She made her professional debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin on 15 April 1938, singing the Second Flower Maiden in Wagner’s *Parsifal*. In 1940 she received a full contract with the Deutsches Opernhaus, which required her to join the Nazi Party.

Since historian Oliver Rathkolb raised the issue in a 1982 dissertation, Schwarzkopf’s relationship with the Nazi Party has been debated in the media and literature. She faced criticism for making contradictory statements after the war and again in the 1980s and 1990s, especially about her NSDAP membership (number 7,548,960). She first denied it, then offered varying defenses—for instance, claiming she joined only because her father insisted, after he had lost his own job for banning a Nazi event at his school. Other publications noted that she performed at Nazi party conferences and for Waffen-SS units during the war. Her supporters maintain that she kept art separate from politics and was apolitical.

In 1942 she was invited to sing with the Vienna State Opera, taking roles such as Konstanze in Mozart’s *Die Entführung aus dem Serail*, Musetta and later Mimì in Puccini’s *La bohème*, and Violetta in Verdi’s *La traviata*. She also appeared in four brief cameo roles in films produced by Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels, but only as a voice, not a film star.

In 1947, Schwarzkopf obtained Austrian citizenship so she could perform abroad with the Vienna State Opera. That year and the next, she toured with the company to London’s Royal Opera House, singing Donna Elvira in *Don Giovanni* on 16 September 1947, and to La Scala on 28 December 1948 as the Countess in *The Marriage of Figaro*, a role that became a signature. She made her official Royal Opera House debut on 16 January 1948 as Pamina in *The Magic Flute* (sung in English), and her La Scala debut on 29 June 1950 in Beethoven’s *Missa solemnis*. Her early 1950s work at La Scala let her perform several roles on stage for the only time: Mélisande in Debussy’s *Pelléas et Mélisande*, Iole in Handel’s *Hercules*, Marguerite in Gounod’s *Faust*, Elsa in Wagner’s *Lohengrin*, and her first Marschallin in Strauss’s *Der Rosenkavalier* and first Fiordiligi in Mozart’s *Così fan tutte* at the Piccola Scala. On 11 September 1951 she sang Anne Trulove in the world premiere of Stravinsky’s *The Rake’s Progress*. She made her American concert debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on 28 and 29 October 1954, performing Strauss’s *Four Last Songs* and the closing scene from *Capriccio* under Fritz Reiner. Her Carnegie Hall debut was a lied recital on 25 November 1956. She debuted in American opera with the San Francisco Opera on 20 September 1955 as the Marschallin, and at the Metropolitan Opera on 13 October 1964, also as the Marschallin.

In March 1946, Schwarzkopf auditioned for Walter Legge, a prominent British record producer and founder of the Philharmonia Orchestra. After she sang Hugo Wolf’s *Wer rief dich denn?*, Legge signed her to an exclusive EMI contract. They became close partners, with Legge acting as her manager and companion, and married on 19 October 1953 in Epsom, Surrey, which gave her British citizenship. For the rest of her career, she balanced lieder recitals with opera. When invited on BBC’s *Desert Island Discs* in 1958 to choose eight favorite records, she selected seven of her own recordings and one of Karajan conducting the *Rosenkavalier* prelude, saying they reminded her of the people she had worked with.