Arleen Auger
Encyclopedia
Joyce Arleen Auger (September 13, 1939 – June 10, 1993) was an American soprano
singer, admired for her coloratura
voice and interpretations of works by Bach
, Handel
, Haydn, Monteverdi, Gluck, and Mozart.
and lived in Hartsdale, New York
. She learned piano and violin as a child. She received a BA in Education from California State University
at Long Beach
in 1963, and her first job was as a kindergarten
and first grade teacher.
Between 1965-67, she studied voice with tenor
Ralph Errolle in Evanston, Illinois
, and began her professional singing career after winning the I. Viktor Fuchs Vocal Competition in Los Angeles in 1967, which brought her some singing engagements and airfare to Vienna
; she also appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at this time. She was signed by the Vienna Staatsoper soon after her arrival there despite her lack of knowledge of the German language, after impressing Josef Krips
, remaining with the company for seven years. Her debut was in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte under Krips. She made her American debut with the same opera in 1969, with the New York City Opera
. Her Metropolitan Opera
debut was as Marzelline in Fidelio
, under Karl Böhm
.
Given background in education, Auger was a natural vocal teacher. She taught from 1971-77 at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, where she moved in 1974, and later taught at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Her debut at La Scala
was in 1975 in L'enfant et les sortilèges
. From this time, she turned to lyrical roles in opera, preferring to focus on her career as a concert singer, in early music
as well as lieder, often accompanied in the latter by pianist Irwin Gage. She performed most of the soprano parts in Helmuth Rilling
's Bach cantata
cycle of the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, appearing several times at Rilling's Oregon Bach Festival
. At the other end of the spectrum, she commissioned new song cycle
s by Libby Larsen
(Sonnets from the Portuguese) and Judith Zaimont.
She performed Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate
in Westminster Abbey
on July 23, 1986 to over 700 million TV viewers at the wedding of The Prince Andrew, Duke of York
and Sarah Ferguson
; she later recorded this work along with the Great Mass in C minor under Leonard Bernstein
, in 1990. On December 5, 1991, the bicentenary of Mozart's death, she sang his Requiem
with Cecilia Bartoli
and the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Georg Solti
in St. Stephen's Cathedral
, Vienna, by this time already suffering from brain cancer. She made over two hundred recordings, including the complete soprano cantatas of Bach and the works of Schoenberg
.
Auger won a Grammy for Best Classical Vocal Performance in 1994 for her performances on the 1993 "The Art of Arlene Auger" (Koch International Classics 3-7248-2H1). The release was also notable for its recording debut of "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by American composer Libby Larsen. Auger also recorded for Delos International
. Stereophile's Jason Serinus wrote that her "exquisite album of Love Songs remains one of the finest compendiums of classical song ever issued."
Music critic Tim Page wrote that she was "the sort of artist whose work not only provided pleasure for her audience but also instruction for her colleagues [...] by any standards, hers was an exemplary career [...] She sang beautifully for more than a quarter century, she sang great music, and she never bowed or pandered to public taste. She was an artist, steady and serious to the end."
of her brain which turned out to be a giant cell glial blastoma
. After three brain surgeries, she died at the age of 53 in Leusden
, The Netherlands, where she had lived during her illness. A memorial service in her honour was held at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel
where works by Bach, Mozart, Fauré and others were performed by several well known musicians including Renée Fleming
and Karen Holvik
. She was married and divorced twice, and was survived by her parents and brother.
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...
singer, admired for her coloratura
Coloratura
Coloratura has several meanings. The word is originally from Italian, literally meaning "coloring", and derives from the Latin word colorare . When used in English, the term specifically refers to elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and...
voice and interpretations of works by Bach
Bạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
, Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
, Haydn, Monteverdi, Gluck, and Mozart.
Biography
Auger was born in South Gate, CaliforniaSouth Gate, California
South Gate is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. The sixteenth largest city in Los Angeles County, it encompasses . South Gate is located just southeast of downtown Los Angeles It is part of the Gateway Cities region of southeastern Los Angeles County...
and lived in Hartsdale, New York
Hartsdale, New York
Hartsdale is a hamlet and a census-designated place located in the town of Greenburgh, Westchester County, New York. The population was 5,293 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Hartsdale is located at ....
. She learned piano and violin as a child. She received a BA in Education from California State University
California State University
The California State University is a public university system in the state of California. It is one of three public higher education systems in the state, the other two being the University of California system and the California Community College system. It is incorporated as The Trustees of the...
at Long Beach
Long Beach, California
Long Beach is a city situated in Los Angeles County in Southern California, on the Pacific coast of the United States. The city is the 36th-largest city in the nation and the seventh-largest in California. As of 2010, its population was 462,257...
in 1963, and her first job was as a kindergarten
Kindergarten
A kindergarten is a preschool educational institution for children. The term was created by Friedrich Fröbel for the play and activity institute that he created in 1837 in Bad Blankenburg as a social experience for children for their transition from home to school...
and first grade teacher.
Between 1965-67, she studied voice with tenor
Tenor
The tenor is a type of male singing voice and is the highest male voice within the modal register. The typical tenor voice lies between C3, the C one octave below middle C, to the A above middle C in choral music, and up to high C in solo work. The low extreme for tenors is roughly B2...
Ralph Errolle in Evanston, Illinois
Evanston, Illinois
Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...
, and began her professional singing career after winning the I. Viktor Fuchs Vocal Competition in Los Angeles in 1967, which brought her some singing engagements and airfare to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
; she also appeared with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra at this time. She was signed by the Vienna Staatsoper soon after her arrival there despite her lack of knowledge of the German language, after impressing 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...
, remaining with the company for seven years. Her debut was in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte under Krips. She made her American debut with the same opera in 1969, with the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
. Her Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
debut was as Marzelline in 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...
, under Karl Böhm
Karl Böhm
Karl August Leopold Böhm was an Austrian conductor. He is widely considered to be one of the greatest symphonic and operatic conductors of the 20th century.- Education :...
.
Given background in education, Auger was a natural vocal teacher. She taught from 1971-77 at the Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, where she moved in 1974, and later taught at the Salzburg Mozarteum. Her debut at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
was in 1975 in L'enfant et les sortilèges
L'enfant et les sortilèges
L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his first being L'heure espagnole...
. From this time, she turned to lyrical roles in opera, preferring to focus on her career as a concert singer, in early music
Early music
Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...
as well as lieder, often accompanied in the latter by pianist Irwin Gage. She performed most of the soprano parts in Helmuth Rilling
Helmuth Rilling
Helmuth Rilling is an internationally known German choral conductor, founder of the Gächinger Kantorei , the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart , the Oregon Bach Festival , the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart and other Bach Academies worldwide, and the "Festival Ensemble Stuttgart"...
's Bach cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
cycle of the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, appearing several times at Rilling's Oregon Bach Festival
Oregon Bach Festival
The Oregon Bach Festival is an annual celebration of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and his musical legacy, held in Eugene, Oregon, United States, in late June and early July. The artistic director is German organist and conductor Helmuth Rilling and the Executive Director is John Evans,...
. At the other end of the spectrum, she commissioned new song cycle
Song cycle
A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
s by Libby Larsen
Libby Larsen
Libby Larsen is one of America’s most performed living composers. She has created a catalogue of over 400 works spanning virtually every genre from intimate vocal and chamber music to massive orchestral works and over fifteen operas...
(Sonnets from the Portuguese) and Judith Zaimont.
She performed Mozart's Exsultate, Jubilate
Exsultate, jubilate
Exsultate, jubilate K. 165, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was written in 1773.This religious solo motet was composed at the time Mozart was visiting Milan....
in Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey
The Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
on July 23, 1986 to over 700 million TV viewers at the wedding of The Prince Andrew, Duke of York
Prince Andrew, Duke of York
Prince Andrew, Duke of York KG GCVO , is the second son, and third child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh...
and Sarah Ferguson
Sarah, Duchess of York
Sarah, Duchess of York is a British charity patron, spokesperson, writer, film producer, television personality and former member of the British Royal Family. She is the former wife of Prince Andrew, Duke of York, whom she married from 1986 to 1996...
; she later recorded this work along with the Great Mass in C minor under Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein
Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...
, in 1990. On December 5, 1991, the bicentenary of Mozart's death, she sang his 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...
with Cecilia Bartoli
Cecilia Bartoli
Cecilia Bartoli is an Italian coloratura mezzo-soprano opera singer and recitalist. She is best-known for her interpretation of the music of Mozart and Rossini, as well as for her performances of lesser-known Baroque and classical music...
and the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Georg Solti
Georg Solti
Sir Georg Solti, KBE, was a Hungarian-British orchestral and operatic conductor. He was a major classical recording artist, holding the record for having received the most Grammy Awards, having personally won 31 as a conductor, including the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. In addition to his...
in St. Stephen's Cathedral
St. Stephen's Cathedral
St. Stephen's Cathedral may refer to any of the following:-France:*Agde Cathedral*Auxerre Cathedral*Bourges Cathedral*Châlons Cathedral*Limoges Cathedral*Meaux Cathedral*Metz Cathedral*Sens Cathedral*Toulouse Cathedral*Toul Cathedral...
, Vienna, by this time already suffering from brain cancer. She made over two hundred recordings, including the complete soprano cantatas of Bach and the works of Schoenberg
Schoenberg
Schoenberg is the surname of several persons:* Arnold Schoenberg , Austrian-American composer* Claude-Michel Schoenberg , French record producer, actor, singer, popular songwriter, and musical theatre composer...
.
Auger won a Grammy for Best Classical Vocal Performance in 1994 for her performances on the 1993 "The Art of Arlene Auger" (Koch International Classics 3-7248-2H1). The release was also notable for its recording debut of "Sonnets from the Portuguese" by American composer Libby Larsen. Auger also recorded for Delos International
Delos International
Delos International is an American record label. Based in Hollywood, California, it specializes in publishing classical music. The Delos recording label was founded in 1973 by Amelia S. Haygood , one of the most prominent figures in the classical recording industry...
. Stereophile's Jason Serinus wrote that her "exquisite album of Love Songs remains one of the finest compendiums of classical song ever issued."
Music critic Tim Page wrote that she was "the sort of artist whose work not only provided pleasure for her audience but also instruction for her colleagues [...] by any standards, hers was an exemplary career [...] She sang beautifully for more than a quarter century, she sang great music, and she never bowed or pandered to public taste. She was an artist, steady and serious to the end."
Death
She retired in February 1992, after being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumour, a mass in the right parietal lobeParietal lobe
The parietal lobe is a part of the Brain positioned above the occipital lobe and behind the frontal lobe.The parietal lobe integrates sensory information from different modalities, particularly determining spatial sense and navigation. For example, it comprises somatosensory cortex and the...
of her brain which turned out to be a giant cell glial blastoma
Blastoma
A blastoma is a type of cancer that is caused by malignancies in precursor cells, often called blasts. Examples are nephroblastoma, medulloblastoma and retinoblastoma The suffix blastoma is used to imply a tumor of primitive, incompletely differentiated A blastoma is a type of cancer that is caused...
. After three brain surgeries, she died at the age of 53 in Leusden
Leusden
Leusden is a municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of Utrecht. It is located about 3 kilometres southeast of Amersfoort....
, The Netherlands, where she had lived during her illness. A memorial service in her honour was held at the Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel
Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel
The Frank E. Campbell Funeral Chapel is a funeral home currently on Madison Avenue at 81st Street in Manhattan. Founded in 1898 as Frank E. Campbell Burial and Cremation Company, the company is now owned by Service Corporation International....
where works by Bach, Mozart, Fauré and others were performed by several well known musicians including Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming
Renée Fleming is an American soprano specializing in opera and lieder. Fleming has a full lyric soprano voice.Fleming has performed coloratura, lyric, and lighter spinto soprano repertoires. She has sung roles in Italian, German, French, Czech, and Russian, aside from her native English. She also...
and Karen Holvik
Karen Holvik
Karen Holvik is a classical soprano. She is the daughter of Karl Holvik , clarinetist and conductor, who was Professor of Music at the University of Northern Iowa between 1947 and 1984, and Martha Holvik , violinist, violist, pianist and soprano, who also taught at UNI and founded the UNI Suzuki...
. She was married and divorced twice, and was survived by her parents and brother.
Media
- Arleen Auger and Cecilia Bartoli sing Benedictus from Mozart's Requiem. Video.
- Arleen sings Exultate, Jubilate by Mozart at the royal marriage in London. Video.
- Arleen sings Et incarnatus est from Mozart Mass in C minor. Video.
External links
- http://www.arleen-auger-memorial-fund.org/ - information, pictures, music samples
- Bach-cantatas.com: Arleen Auger - pictures
- http://www.stereophile.com/news/032607haygood/ - opinion