Claudia Eder
Encyclopedia
Claudia Eder is a German mezzo-soprano
in opera
and concert, and an academic in Mainz
.
, Germany
. She studied voice
and cello
at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
, the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main, in Budapest
and Milan
. Her voice teachers were Elsa Cavelti, Marianne Schech, Jenö Sipos and Maria Castellani.
Her debut was in 1973 at Bielefeld in the part of Nicklausse in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann. She sang at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
and the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz
from 1975, at the Vienna Volksoper
from 1982, and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein
in Düsseldorf from 1995.
In Vienna she appeared in 1987 in the opera Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke of Siegfried Matthus
(1984). In Düsseldorf she sang the title role of Bizet's Carmen
. Other roles included Dorabella in Mozart's Così fan tutte
, Rossini's La Cenerentola
, Meg in Verdi's Falstaff
, and Hansel in Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel.
She sang the parts of La Muse and Nicklausse on a recording conducted by Seiji Ozawa
, with Plácido Domingo
, Edita Gruberová
, Christa Ludwig
, Gabriel Bacquier
and Justino Díaz
, among others. A review of Andrew Lamb states: "I very much like Claudia Eder as Nicklausse, though. Her voice is full of youthful confidence and flexibility, and her singing of her alternative Act 2 song Voyez-la sous son eventail is a real delight." In 1993 she appeared at the Salzburg Festival
as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier
of Richard Strauss. In 2002 she sang in Mainz in the premiere of the opera on Johannes Gutenberg by Gavin Bryars
, G (Being the Confession and Last Testament of Johannes Gensfleisch, also known as Gutenberg, Master Printer, formerly of Strasbourg and Mainz), the part of Frau Beildeck.
She brought dramatic action to the concert stage as well, singing the alto part in Honegger's Le roi David
in a performance in 1980 in the Marktkirche Wiesbaden
with the Rheingauer Kantorei and the Radiosinfonieorchester Frankfurt
, conducted by Frank Stähle, portraying the young David as well as the Witch of Endor
. On 21 November 1981, she sang in Bach's Mass in B minor with the same choir as part of the Vierte Wiesbadener Bachwochen (Fourth Wiesbaden Bach Weeks).
She has been teaching voice at the Hochschule für Musik der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz since 1984 and was appointed Professor in 1988. In a concert to mark her appointment she performed a cantata Arianna a Naxos of Joseph Haydn
, a new composition by the conductor Wolfgang Hofmann, Wirklichkeit unserer unverläßliches Märchen after Rose Ausländer
, Ottorino Respighi
's Il Tramonto, and Zigeunerlieder of Johannes Brahms
. She became "Prorektorin" (Vice President) of the Hochschule in 1999, founded its international summer school in 2004, and received a Fellowship of the Gutenberg Forschungskolleg in 2010.
In 2006 she received, as the first woman artist, the Akademiepreis des Landes (Academy prize of the State Rhineland-Palatinate
). In 2009 she became a member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur (Academy of the Sciences and Literature).
Mezzo-soprano
A mezzo-soprano is a type of classical female singing voice whose range lies between the soprano and the contralto singing voices, usually extending from the A below middle C to the A two octaves above...
in opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
and concert, and an academic in Mainz
Mainz
Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...
.
Biography
Claudia Eder was born in AugsburgAugsburg
Augsburg is a city in the south-west of Bavaria, Germany. It is a university town and home of the Regierungsbezirk Schwaben and the Bezirk Schwaben. Augsburg is an urban district and home to the institutions of the Landkreis Augsburg. It is, as of 2008, the third-largest city in Bavaria with a...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. She studied voice
Singing
Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
and cello
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
Hochschule für Musik und Theater München
The Hochschule für Musik und Theater München is one of the most respected traditional vocational universities in Germany specialising in music and the performing arts. The seat of the Hochschule is the former Führerbau of the NSDAP, located at Arcisstraße 12, on the eastern side of the Königsplatz...
, the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main, in Budapest
Budapest
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...
and 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 ,...
. Her voice teachers were Elsa Cavelti, Marianne Schech, Jenö Sipos and Maria Castellani.
Her debut was in 1973 at Bielefeld in the part of Nicklausse in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann. She sang at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden
The Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden is the State Theatre of the German state Hesse in the capital Wiesbaden, producing operas, plays, ballets, musicals and concerts on four stages. It is also known as Staatstheater Wiesbaden or Theater Wiesbaden...
and the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz
Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz
Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz is an opera house and opera company in Munich. Designed by the architect Michael Reiffenstuel, it opened on 5 November 1865 as the city's second opera house after the National Theatre....
from 1975, at the Vienna Volksoper
Vienna Volksoper
The Vienna Volksoper is a major opera house in Vienna, Austria. It gives about three hundred performances of twenty-five productions during an annual season running from September through June....
from 1982, and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein
Deutsche Oper am Rhein
The Deutsche Oper am Rhein is an opera company based in Düsseldorf and Duisburg. The opera also has an associated classical ballet company....
in Düsseldorf from 1995.
In Vienna she appeared in 1987 in the opera Die Weise von Liebe und Tod des Cornets Christoph Rilke of Siegfried Matthus
Siegfried Matthus
Siegfried Matthus is a German composer and opera director living in Berlin and is one of Germany's most often performed contemporary composers.- Biography :Matthus attended secondary school in Rheinsberg, followed by studies at the Hochschule für Musik...
(1984). In Düsseldorf she sang the title role of Bizet's Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
. Other roles included Dorabella in Mozart's Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
, Rossini's La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola
La Cenerentola, ossia La bontà in trionfo is an operatic dramma giocoso in two acts by Gioachino Rossini. The libretto was written by Jacopo Ferretti, based on the fairy tale Cinderella...
, Meg in Verdi's Falstaff
Falstaff (opera)
Falstaff is an operatic commedia lirica in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi, adapted by Arrigo Boito from Shakespeare's plays The Merry Wives of Windsor and scenes from Henry IV. It was Verdi's last opera, written in the composer's ninth decade, and only the second of his 26 operas to be a comedy...
, and Hansel in Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel.
She sang the parts of La Muse and Nicklausse on a recording conducted by Seiji Ozawa
Seiji Ozawa
is a Japanese conductor, particularly noted for his interpretations of large-scale late Romantic works. He is most known for his work as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and principal conductor of the Vienna State Opera.-Early years:...
, with Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo
Plácido Domingo KBE , born José Plácido Domingo Embil, is a Spanish tenor and conductor known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range...
, Edita Gruberová
Edita Gruberová
Edita Gruberová , is a Slovak soprano who is one of the most acclaimed coloraturas of recent decades. She is noted for her great tonal clarity, agility, dramatic interpretation, and ability to sing high notes with great power, which made her an ideal Queen of the Night in her early years...
, Christa Ludwig
Christa Ludwig
Christa Ludwig is a retired German mezzo-soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, Lieder, oratorio and other major religious works like masses and passions, and solos contained in symphonic literature...
, Gabriel Bacquier
Gabriel Bacquier
Gabriel Bacquier is a French operatic baritone. One of the leading baritones of the 20th century and particularly associated with the French and Italian repertories, he is considered a fine singing-actor equally at home in dramatic or comic roles.-Life and career:Gabriel Bacquier was born in...
and Justino Díaz
Justino Díaz
Justino Díaz is an internationally renowned bass-baritone opera singer. In 1963, Díaz won an annual contest held at the Metropolitan Opera of New York, becoming the "first" Puerto Rican to obtain such an honor and as a consequence, made his Metropolitan debut on October 1963 in Verdi's Rigoletto...
, among others. A review of Andrew Lamb states: "I very much like Claudia Eder as Nicklausse, though. Her voice is full of youthful confidence and flexibility, and her singing of her alternative Act 2 song Voyez-la sous son eventail is a real delight." In 1993 she appeared at 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...
as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
of Richard Strauss. In 2002 she sang in Mainz in the premiere of the opera on Johannes Gutenberg by Gavin Bryars
Gavin Bryars
Richard Gavin Bryars is an English composer and double bassist. He has been active in, or has produced works in, a variety of styles of music, including jazz, free improvisation, minimalism, historicism, experimental music, avant-garde and neoclassicism.-Early life and career:Born in Goole, East...
, G (Being the Confession and Last Testament of Johannes Gensfleisch, also known as Gutenberg, Master Printer, formerly of Strasbourg and Mainz), the part of Frau Beildeck.
She brought dramatic action to the concert stage as well, singing the alto part in Honegger's Le roi David
Le Roi David (Honegger)
Le roi David was composed in Mézières, Switzerland in 1921 by Arthur Honegger and is classified as an oratorio or more specifically as a dramatic psalm...
in a performance in 1980 in the Marktkirche Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden
Wiesbaden is a city in southwest Germany and the capital of the federal state of Hesse. It has about 275,400 inhabitants, plus approximately 10,000 United States citizens...
with the Rheingauer Kantorei and the Radiosinfonieorchester Frankfurt
HR-Sinfonieorchester
The hr-Sinfonieorchester is the radio orchestra of Hessischer Rundfunk, the public broadcasting network of the German state of Hesse. Until 2005 it was the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, a name still used for international tours....
, conducted by Frank Stähle, portraying the young David as well as the Witch of Endor
Witch of Endor
The Witch of Endor, sometimes called the Medium of Endor, was a woman who called up the ghost of the recently deceased prophet Samuel, at the demand of King Saul of the Kingdom of Israel in the First Book of Samuel, chapter...
. On 21 November 1981, she sang in Bach's Mass in B minor with the same choir as part of the Vierte Wiesbadener Bachwochen (Fourth Wiesbaden Bach Weeks).
She has been teaching voice at the Hochschule für Musik der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz since 1984 and was appointed Professor in 1988. In a concert to mark her appointment she performed a cantata Arianna a Naxos of Joseph Haydn
Joseph Haydn
Franz Joseph Haydn , known as Joseph Haydn , was an Austrian composer, one of the most prolific and prominent composers of the Classical period. He is often called the "Father of the Symphony" and "Father of the String Quartet" because of his important contributions to these forms...
, a new composition by the conductor Wolfgang Hofmann, Wirklichkeit unserer unverläßliches Märchen after Rose Ausländer
Rose Ausländer
Rose Ausländer , maiden name Rosalie Beatrice Scherzer, was a Jewish German- and English language poet. She was born in Bucovina, and lived in U.S.A, Romania, and Germany....
, Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi
Ottorino Respighi was an Italian composer, musicologist and conductor. He is best known for his orchestral "Roman trilogy": Fountains of Rome ; Pines of Rome ; and Roman Festivals...
's Il Tramonto, and Zigeunerlieder of Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
. She became "Prorektorin" (Vice President) of the Hochschule in 1999, founded its international summer school in 2004, and received a Fellowship of the Gutenberg Forschungskolleg in 2010.
In 2006 she received, as the first woman artist, the Akademiepreis des Landes (Academy prize of the State Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate
Rhineland-Palatinate is one of the 16 states of the Federal Republic of Germany. It has an area of and about four million inhabitants. The capital is Mainz. English speakers also commonly refer to the state by its German name, Rheinland-Pfalz ....
). In 2009 she became a member of the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur (Academy of the Sciences and Literature).
External links
- Claudia Eder on the website Singing Summer 2009 of the Hochschule für Musik der Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz (in German)
- Claudia Eder on the website Operissimo (in German)
- Entries for recordings by Claudia Eder on WorldCatWorldCatWorldCat is a union catalog which itemizes the collections of 72,000 libraries in 170 countries and territories which participate in the Online Computer Library Center global cooperative...