Maria Stader
Encyclopedia
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, known particularly for her Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
interpretations.
Biography
Stader was born in BudapestBudapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, Hungary, on November 5, 1911, as Maria Molnár. During and after World War I, the price of food in Budapest was so high that it was difficult for her parents to support their five children. Maria and her younger sister, Elisabeth, were taken to Switzerland by The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
to recuperate for three months after being diagnosed with malnutrition. There, Maria's foster parents requested she stay for a full nine months. However, once in Budapest again, Maria fell seriously ill and it was also determined she would need her tonsils operated on. Her foster parents arranged for her to return to Switzerland. Because of difficulties with the aliens office police, Maria could not remain in the canton of Zürich
Canton of Zürich
The Canton of Zurich has a population of . The canton is located in the northeast of Switzerland and the city of Zurich is its capital. The official language is German, but people speak the local Swiss German dialect called Züritüütsch...
, so her foster father found her a place with the Stader family in Romanshorn. They later adopted her.
In 1939, Stader married Hans Erismann, the music director of Weinfelden
Weinfelden
Weinfelden is a municipality in the canton of Thurgau in Switzerland. It is the capital of the district of the same name.Weinfelden is an old town, which was known during Roman times as Quivelda .-History:...
and later the choir director of the Zurich Opera House
Zurich Opera House
Opernhaus Zürich is an opera house in the Swiss city of Zurich. It has been the home of the Zurich Opera since 1891.- History :...
. Through the husband of her vocal teacher, Mathilde Bärlocher, she got acquainted with the Schulthess-Geyer couple. Stefi Geyer
Stefi Geyer
Stefi Geyer was a Hungarian violinist.She was the daughter of Josef Geyer, a police doctor who played the violin himself. When she was 3 years old she started playing the violin, with remarkable results for someone who had not practiced at all...
took special care of her after that. Her vocal teacher, Ilona Durigo, introduced her to Hermann and Lily Reiff (a student of Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
). The Reiffs' home was the frequent meeting place of Busch, Walter and Mann
Thomas Mann
Thomas Mann was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate, known for his series of highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novellas, noted for their insight into the psychology of the artist and the intellectual...
, the entire corona of the Opera House and Zürich Theater
Schauspielhaus Zürich
The Schauspielhaus Zürich is one of the most prominent and important theatres in the German-speaking world. It is also known as "Pfauenbühne" after its location on the Pfauen Square in Zürich, Switzerland. The large theatre has 750 seats...
. Fritz Busch
Fritz Busch
Fritz Busch was a German conductor.Busch was born in Siegen, Province of Westphalia. He held posts conducting opera at Aachen, Stuttgart and Dresden. In 1933 he was dismissed from his post at Dresden because of his opposition to the new Nazi government of Germany...
arranged for Maria Stader to go to the Schnabel School in Tremezzo
Tremezzo
Tremezzo is a comune of some 1300 people in the Province of Como, in the Italian region Lombardy.It is located on the western shore of Lake Como between Mezzegra to the south-west and Griante to the north-east, and about 20 km from Como...
a couple of years later. Maria Stader was a close friend of the Swiss politician, Walther Bringolf, as well as numerous musicians – especially pianist Clara Haskil
Clara Haskil
Clara Haskil was a Romanian classical pianist, renowned as an interpreter of the classical and early romantic repertoire....
and the Hungarian conductor Ferenc Fricsay
Ferenc Fricsay
Ferenc Fricsay was a Hungarian conductor. From 1960 until his death, he was an Austrian citizen.Fricsay was born in Budapest in 1914 and studied music under Béla Bartók, Zoltán Kodály, Ernst von Dohnányi, and Leo Weiner. Fricsay had a meteoric rise to fame, making his first appearance as a...
(with whom she became acquainted through Rolf Liebermann
Rolf Liebermann
Rolf Liebermann , was a Swiss composer and music administrator born in Zurich, and associated with several different musical genres. His output included chansons, classical, and light music. His classical music often combines myriad styles and techniques, including those drawn from baroque,...
). She was also a friend of the French film director, Emil-Edwin Reinert
Emil-Edwin Reinert
Emil-Edwin Reinert, or Emile-Edwin Reinert, was a French, film director, screen writer, audio engineer and producer....
and she corresponded with Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer OM was a German theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, at that time part of the German Empire...
.
Education
Stader first received vocal instruction from Mathilde Bärlocher from St. GallenSt. Gallen
St. Gallen is the capital of the canton of St. Gallen in Switzerland. It evolved from the hermitage of Saint Gall, founded in the 7th century. Today, it is a large urban agglomeration and represents the center of eastern Switzerland. The town mainly relies on the service sector for its economic...
, Switzerland, and as of 1930, from her father, Hans Keller, in Konstanz
Konstanz
Konstanz is a university city with approximately 80,000 inhabitants located at the western end of Lake Constance in the south-west corner of Germany, bordering Switzerland. The city houses the University of Konstanz.-Location:...
. As of 1935, Stader was educated by Ilona Durigo in Zürich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...
and after that, she took lessons in Tremezzo
Tremezzo
Tremezzo is a comune of some 1300 people in the Province of Como, in the Italian region Lombardy.It is located on the western shore of Lake Como between Mezzegra to the south-west and Griante to the north-east, and about 20 km from Como...
from Therese Behr-Schnabel, the wife of Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel was an Austrian classical pianist, who also composed and taught. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura...
. From 1938 on, Stader received training from Giannina Arangi-Lombardi
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi
Giannina Arangi-Lombardi was a prominent spinto soprano, particularly associated with the Italian operatic repertory....
in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
.
Career
Stader first achieved fame for her interpretations of MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
and her collaborations with conductor Ferenc Fricsay on pieces including Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, Le nozze di Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
, The Abduction from the Seraglio
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
, and the Great Mass, as well as the Messa da Requiem
Requiem (Verdi)
The Messa da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi is a musical setting of the Roman Catholic funeral mass for four soloists, double choir and orchestra. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, an Italian poet and novelist much admired by Verdi. The first performance in San Marco in Milan on 22 May...
. She won the Geneva International Competition in 1939, but although she "seemed poised for major stardom... her career was delayed by the outbreak of World War II," according to Opera News
Opera News
Opera News is an American classical music magazine. It has been published since 1936 by the Metropolitan Opera Guild, a non-profit organization located at Lincoln Center which was founded to support the Metropolitan Opera of New York City...
. Later in her career Stader also acquired a reputation as an outstanding Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
interpreter, especially with Karl Richter and Ferenc Fricsay. She also recorded the Requiem
Requiem (Dvorák)
Antonín Dvořák's Requiem in B-flat minor, Op. 89, B. 165, is a funeral mass for soloists, choir and orchestra, composed in 1890.- Background :...
by Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
with Karel Ančerl
Karel Ancerl
Karel Ančerl , was a Czech conductor, known for his performances of contemporary music and for his interpretations of music by Czech composers...
, and Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
(as Marzelline) with Hans Knappertsbusch
Hans Knappertsbusch
Hans Knappertsbusch was a German conductor, best known for his performances of the music of Richard Wagner, Anton Bruckner and Richard Strauss....
.
Stader was highly praised for her fine, if not very powerful, voice. She nearly always performed operatic roles in the recording studio and seldom, if ever, on stage because of her small stature – she was about 1.44 metre tall. She also preferred the concert repertory that she loved. "Even in concert, she frequently had to stand on a platform or box in order to be seen properly by the audience," according to Opera News.
This also enabled Stader to avoid the strain experienced by many operatic singers, and preserve her fresh and delicate-sounding voice until well into the 1960s. She stood on the concert podium for the last time in Philharmonic Hall
Avery Fisher Hall
Avery Fisher Hall is a concert hall, in New York City and is part of the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts complex. It is the home of the New York Philharmonic, with a capacity of 2,738 seats.-History:...
in New York in the Mozart Requiem
Requiem (Mozart)
The Requiem Mass in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composed in Vienna in 1791 and left unfinished at the composer's death. A completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had anonymously commissioned the piece for a requiem Mass to commemorate the...
on December 7, 1969, "still in solid vocal condition." Her concert tours had taken her around the world. Besides Europe and America, she also sang in Japan, South Africa and South America. Maria Stader sang in various festivals, including the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
, the Lucerne Festival
Lucerne Festival
- History :The festival was founded in 1938 with a series of concerts in the gardens of Wagner's villa conducted by Arturo Toscanini, who had formed an orchestra with members of different orchestras and soloists for the concert...
, at the Prades
Prades, Pyrénées-Orientales
Prades is a commune and a sub-prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France. It is the capital of the historical Conflent comarca. Its inhabitants are called Pradéens.-Geography:...
Festival and at the Aspen Music Festival
Aspen Music Festival and School
The Aspen Music Festival and School, founded in 1949, is an internationally renowned classical music festival that presents music in an intimate, small-town setting...
. She sang under the leadership of many well-known conductors including Eugen Jochum
Eugen Jochum
Eugen Jochum was an eminent German conductor.Born in Babenhausen, near Augsburg, Germany, Jochum studied the piano and organ in Augsburg until 1922. He then studied conducting in Munich...
, Josef Krips
Josef Krips
Josef Alois Krips was an Austrian conductor and violinist.-Biography:Krips was born in Vienna and went on to become a pupil of Eusebius Mandyczewski and Felix Weingartner. From 1921 to 1924, he served as Weingartner's assistant at the Vienna Volksoper and as répétiteur and chorus master...
, Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...
, George Szell
George Szell
George Szell , originally György Széll, György Endre Szél, or Georg Szell, was a Hungarian-born American conductor and composer...
, Carl Schuricht
Carl Schuricht
Carl Adolph Schuricht was a German conductor.Schuricht was born in Danzig , German Empire; his father's family had been respected organ-builders. His mother, Amanda Wusinowska, a widow soon after her marriage , brought up her son alone...
, Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Kubelík
Rafael Jeroným Kubelík was a Czech conductor and composer.-Early life:Kubelík was born in Býchory, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary, today's Czech Republic. He was the sixth child of the Bohemian violinist Jan Kubelík, whom the younger Kubelík described as "a kind of god to me." His mother was a Hungarian...
, Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
, Hermann Scherchen
Hermann Scherchen
Hermann Scherchen was a German conductor.-Life:Scherchen was originally a violist and played among the violas of the Bluthner Orchestra of Berlin while still in his teens...
, Otto Klemperer
Otto Klemperer
Otto Klemperer was a German conductor and composer. He is widely regarded as one of the leading conductors of the 20th century.-Biography:Otto Klemperer was born in Breslau, Silesia Province, then in Germany...
, Ernest Ansermet
Ernest Ansermet
Ernest Alexandre Ansermet was a Swiss conductor.- Biography :Ansermet was born in Vevey, Switzerland. Although he was a contemporary of Wilhelm Furtwängler and Otto Klemperer, Ansermet represents in most ways a very different tradition and approach from those two musicians. Originally he was a...
and Dean Dixon
Dean Dixon
Charles Dean Dixon was an American conductor.Dixon was born in New York City, where he later studied conducting with Albert Stoessel at the Juilliard School and Columbia University. When early pursuits of conducting engagements were stifled because of racial bias , he formed his own orchestra and...
. Maria Stader taught at the Zurich Conservatory.
She died in Zürich on April 27, 1999.
Awards
- 1939 – First place, Geneva International Music CompetitionGeneva International Music CompetitionThe Geneva International Music Competition is a music competitions held in Geneva, founded in 1939 in the Geneva Conservatory for a wide variety of instruments, voice, conducting, and chamber music.-See also:* List of classical music competitions* World Federation of International Music...
- 1950 – Lilli Lehmann MedalLilli Lehmann MedalThe Lilli Lehmann Medal is an award named in honour of soprano Lilli Lehmann. It is awarded by the Mozarteum International Foundation.-Recipients:Among the people who have received it are:* Maria Stader, 1950, 1965* Hans Braun, 1950* Julius Patzak, 1950...
, International Mozarteum FoundationInternational Mozarteum FoundationThe International Mozarteum Foundation was founded in 1880 in Salzburg with its primary concern being the life and work of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.... - 1956 – Silver Mozart Medal of the International Mozarteum Foundation
- 1964 – Hans Georg NägeliHans Georg NägeliHans Georg Nägeli was a composer and music publisher.Nägeli was born in Wetzikon, Switzerland. He studied under his father as a child, and then opened a private music shop and publishing firm in the 1790s...
Medal by the Zurich City Council
Articles by Maria Stader
- Ferenc Fricsay, in: Diener der Musik. Unvergessene Solisten und Dirigenten unserer Zeit im Spiegel der Freunde. Publ. by Martin Müller and Wolfgang Mertz. Tübingen, Rainer Wunderlich, 1965.
- Zusammenarbeit mit Fricsay, in: Friedrich Herzfeld (Publ.): Ferenc Fricsay. Ein Gedenkbuch. Berlin, Rembrand, 1964.
- Über Wilhelm FurtwänglerWilhelm FurtwänglerWilhelm Furtwängler was a German conductor and composer. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century. By the 1930s he had built a reputation as one of the leading conductors in Europe, and he was the leading conductor who remained...
, in: Furtwängler Recalled. Zurich, Atlantis, 1965.