Never before
The Life & First New York Career of

ASTRID VARNAY




The Vocal Record Collectors Society
Christ Methodist Church
Northwest corner of East 60th Street and Park Avenue
Phillips Auditorium

Presentation of Friday, November 12, 2004 - 7:30pm

Excerpts from a conversation recorded in Munich, Germany on May 22, 2003
Twenty arias from live broadcasts and studio recordings
Narration based solely on 55 Years in Five Acts: My Life in Opera, written by Astrid Varnay with Donald Arthur

My story about this wonderful day actually begins more than a year ago. Donald Arthur, the co-author of the much heralded biography "55 Years in Five Acts: My Life In Opera" contacted me, requesting a copy of the Die Walküre broadcast of February 3, 1951. This was one of two occasions that Mme. Varnay and Kirsten Flagstad, sang on the same stage together, Mme. Varnay singing Sieglinde and Mme. Flagstad portraying the role of Brünnhilde. This particular performance also marked the 16th Anniversary to the day of Mme. Flagstad's Metropolitan Opera debut in the role of Sieglinde. The other occasion of their collaboration was again in the same opera the following May at Covent Garden, Mme. Flagstad's farewell to that house; this time, Mme. Flagstad requested the opera but asked that she sing Sieglinde and that Mme. Varnay sing the role of Brünnhilde.


I most happily sent to her this recording as well as the other eight broadcasts from the 1950s: Der fliegende Holländer, Elektra, Der Rosenkavalier, Tannhäuser (Mme. Varnay singing Venus), Die Walküre (Mme. Varnay once again singing Sieglinde), Parsifal, Tannhäuser (Mme. Varnay portraying Elisabeth) and her final Met broadcast as a leading soprano of the company, Tristan und Isolde. After the copies were received, Mr. Arthur called me from Munich to thank me and gave me a thrill by putting Mme. Varnay on the phone. She sounded exactly like her voice from a 1951 intermission feature: young, vibrant and glowing.


In early January of 2003, soprano Tobé Malawista gave me a trip to Paris to attend one of her entertaining Mirror Visions concerts. I then seized the opportunity and respectfully requested to Mr. Arthur if I could record a conversation with Mme. Varnay, concentrating solely on the 1950s and talking about things not fleshed out in her wonderful biography.





A couple of weeks later, I received the good news that Mme. Varnay had graciously consented to speak with me "because he has been so nice to us." I later found out that Mme. Varnay has received dozens of requests for interviews and has turned down 95% of them. I then started preparation, first by asking my friend Jack Stein, to read to me the biography, which, by the way, is enthralling and can be considered a how-to book for any aspiring singer. I took lots of notes and made myself as familiar as possible with her rich life, a life that never experienced a wrong turn.


A week or so before my departure, Donald Arthur suggested I call Mme. Varnay myself to arrange the date. He was leaving for Malta at the end of May and the conversation was to take place at his Munich apartment. I called her and we decided on May 23rd. I uttered the word "interview" and she kindly remarked that the word gave her a feeling of slight pressure. I replied that I was going to be a bit nervous myself and she calmed me by saying:


"A voice was placed in my body by a deity; other than that, I'm a plain person"

Upon my arrival in Munich, I called Donald Arthur and he informed me it would be better if the interview took place on the 22nd as he needed the time alone to get ready for this much needed vacation. This was a propitious decision as May 22nd turned out to be the 190th birthday of Richard Wagner, the composer whom Mme. Varnay championed for decades in the world's opera houses, including, of course, the composer's house in Bayreuth.


Though I covered about half of the material I wished to, we discussed her mother's teaching, the charisma of an artist, we touched on the roles of Elektra, Salome, Senta and the Marschallin, the singing of the 1950s, the 1951 London Die Walküre, Paul Althouse, her beloved husband Hermann Weigert, colleagues such as Rise Stevens, Hans Hotter, Jarmila Novotna, Randolph Symonette, Zinka Milanov, Ljuba Welitsch and Ramon Vinay, vocal longevity and other subjects. After our conversation ended, Mme. Varnay told me that this would be her last interview. She feels all has been said already. She feels that at her age, she has tired of being a representative of the operatic theater: when she closes the door, she would like to belong to herself.



The Metropolitan Opera Broadcasts of Astrid Varnay

Date	Opera	Role	Cast
December 6, 1941	Die Walküre	Sieglinde	Traubel, Melchior, Schorr, Thorborg, Kipnis; Leinsdorf
January 17, 1942	Lohengrin	Elsa	Melchior, Thorbrg, Janssen, Warren; Leinsdorf
February 14, 1942	Tannhäuser	Elisabeth	Melchior, Thorborg, Janssen, Kipnis; Leinsdorf
January 2, 1943	Lohengrin	Elsa	Melchior, Thorborg, Janssen, Sved; Leinsdorf
February 5, 1944	Tannhäuser	Elisabeth	Melchior, Lawrence, Huehn, Kipnis; Leinsdorf
February 24, 1945	Lohengrin	Elsa	Melchior, Thorborg, Sved, Cordon; Leinsdorf
March 30, 1946	Die Walküre	Sieglinde	Traubel, Melchior, Berglund, Thorborg, List; Leinsdorf
March 8, 1947	Die Walküre	Brünnhilde	Bampton, Melchior, Janssen, Harshaw, Moscona; Steidry
March 6, 1948	Tannhäuser	Venus	Melchior, Traubel, Janssen, Szekely; Stiedry
January 7, 1950	Lohengrin	Ortrud	Melchior, Traubel, Janssen, Ernster; Stiedry
January 28, 1950	Simon Boccanegra	Maria	Warren, Tucker, Szekely, Valdengo; Stiedry
December 30, 1950	Der fliegende Holländer	Senta	Hotter, Svanholm, Nilsson; Reiner
February 3, 1951	Die Walküre	Sieglinde	Flagstad, Treptow, Franz, Thebom, Vichey; Stiedry
February 23, 1952	Elektra	Elektra	Wegner, Höngen, Schöffler, Svanholm; Reiner
February 28, 1953	Der Rosenkavalier	Marschallin	Stevens, Conner, Koreh, Brownlee, Glaz, Hayward; Reiner
January 9, 1954	Tannhäuser	Venus	Vinay, Harshaw, London, Hines; Szell
February 13, 1954	Die Walküre	Sieglinde	Harshaw, Franz, Svanholm, Thebom, Hotter; Stiedry
April 17, 1954	Parsifal	Kundry	Svanholm, London, Hotter, Davidson; Stiedry
January 29, 1955	Tannhäuser	Elisabeth	Vinay, Thebom, London, Hines; Kempe
March 19, 1955	Tristan und Isolde	Isolde	Svanholm, Thebom, Metternich, Hines; Kempe
January 21, 1974	Jenufa	Kostelnicka	Kubiak, Vickers, Lewis, Kraft; Nelson
January 10, 1976	Salome	Herodias	Rysanek, Ulfung, Bailey, Riegel; Leinsdorf
December 23, 1979	Mahagonny	Widow Begbic	Stratas, Cassily, Macneil, Ulfung, Plishka; Levine