Karin Branzell
Encyclopedia
Karin Branzell was a Swedish
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 operatic contralto (sometimes described as a mezzo-soprano), who had a prominent career at the 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...

, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

, and in Europe. Her very wide range enabled her to sing both contralto roles and the occasional soprano role. She was particularly noted for her singing of the music of Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...

, in roles as Ortrud (Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...

), Venus (Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...

), Erda (Das Rheingold
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...

and Siegfried
Siegfried (opera)
Siegfried is the third of the four operas that constitute Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner. It received its premiere at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus on 16 August 1876, as part of the first complete performance of The Ring...

), Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...

), and Brunnhilde (Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...

). She was considered on a par with Margarete Klose
Margarete Klose
Margarete Klose, , was a German operatic mezzo-soprano. Her 'official' year of birth was 1902.- Life :...

 and Kerstin Thorborg
Kerstin Thorborg
Kerstin Thorborg Born in Venjan, Sweden, the contralto Kerstin Thorborg was one of the best dramatic Wagnerian singers in the two decades between 1930 and 1950. She made her debut in 1924 singing the difficult role of Ortrud. Eight years later, the famed conductor Bruno Walter engaged her for the...

 as a Wagnerian contralto. Amneris (Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...

), Dalila (Samson et Dalila
Samson and Delilah (opera)
Samson and Delilah , Op. 47, is a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire...

), Herodias (Salome
Salome (opera)
Salome is an opera in one act by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by the composer, based on Hedwig Lachmann’s German translation of the French play Salomé by Oscar Wilde. Strauss dedicated the opera to his friend Sir Edgar Speyer....

), and Clytemnestra (Elektra
Elektra (opera)
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...

) were among her other renowned roles.

Biography

Karin Maria Branzell was born in Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...

, Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, on 24 September 1891. She initially trained as an organist, and was engaged as assistant organist at the Hjorthagen Church in Stockholm from 1910 to 1913. She studied singing with Tekla Hofer and acting with Elisabeth Hjortberg in her native city. Her debut was at the Royal Theatre
Royal Swedish Opera
Kungliga Operan is Sweden's national stage for opera and ballet.-Location and Environment:...

 in Stockholm as Prince Sarvilaka in Eugen d'Albert
Eugen d'Albert
Eugen Francis Charles d'Albert was a Scottish-born German pianist and composer.Educated in Britain, d'Albert showed early musical talent and, at the age of seventeen, he won a scholarship to study in Austria...

's Izeyl, in the 1912-13 season. That year she also sang Nancy in Martha
Martha (opera)
Martha, oder Der Markt zu Richmond is a 'romantic comic' opera in four acts by Friedrich von Flotow, set to a German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Riese and based on a story by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges....

and Amneris in Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...

. Her other teachers were Anna Eugénie Schön-René (a pupil of Pauline Viardot), Louis Bachner in Berlin, and Enrico Rosati in New York. She sang at the Royal Theatre 1913-18, and at the Berlin State Opera from 1920 to 1934, where she created the role of the Nurse in the Berlin première of Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917...

under the composer, Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

, and was also heard as Azucena (Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...

), Laura (La Gioconda
La Gioconda (opera)
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...

), Fides (Le prophète
Le prophète
Le prophète is an opera in five acts by Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French-language libretto was by Eugène Scribe.-Performance history:...

), Dalila (Samson et Dalila
Samson and Delilah (opera)
Samson and Delilah , Op. 47, is a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire...

) and 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...

. She also appeared at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...

 in 1935, 1937 and 1938. She sang there alongside Charles Kullman
Charles Kullman
Charles Kullman , originally Charles Kullmann, was an American tenor who enjoyed a wide-ranging career, both in Europe and America.- Life and career :...

, Alexander Kipnis
Alexander Kipnis
Alexander Kipnis , was a Ukrainian-born operatic bass of great artistry and vocal endowment.Having initially established his artistic reputation in Europe, Kipnis became an American citizen in 1931, following his marriage to an American...

 and Elisabeth Rethberg
Elisabeth Rethberg
The German soprano Elisabeth Rethberg was an opera singer of international repute active from the period of the First World War through to the early 1940s. Some hailed her as the greatest soprano of her day...

, as Konchakovna in a German language version of Alexander Borodin
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...

's Prince Igor
Prince Igor
Prince Igor is an opera in four acts with a prologue. It was composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Polovtsian tribes in 1185...

, conducted by Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...

.

She first appeared at the Metropolitan Opera on 6 February 1924, singing Fricka in Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...

, and sang there every season until 1944. She returned for a farewell season in 1951, singing Erda in Rudolf Bing's first Ring cycle
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...

She sang a total of 412 performances of 21 roles with the Met. During one performance of Die Walküre (27 January 1925), Julia Claussen, the Brünnhilde (also a Contralto/Mezzo-Soprano), was unable to sing Act III, having come to "contralto grief" (i.e. strained her voice) on the high notes of the battle cry at the beginning of Act II. Branzell, who was singing Fricka in the performance (the character appears only in Act II), returned to the stage as Brünnhilde and finished the opera.
Three of her students – Nell Rankin
Nell Rankin
Nell Rankin was an American operatic mezzo-soprano. Although a successful opera singer internationally, she spent most of her career at the Metropolitan Opera where she worked from 1951-1976. Rankin was particularly admired for her portrayals of Amneris in Verdi's Aida and the title role in...

, Jean Madeira
Jean Madeira
Jean Madeira was an American mezzo-soprano, particularly known for her work in late-romantic German repertoire such as the operas of Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss...

 and Mignon Dunn - distinguished themselves at the Met.

Her other appearances included the Munich State Opera, the Colon Theatre, Buenos Aires, the Bayreuth Festival (1930-31), Florence, and San Francisco (1941).

In 1934-35, she sang the contralto role in the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...

's first performance of Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

's Kindertotenlieder
Kindertotenlieder
Kindertotenlieder is a song cycle for voice and orchestra by Gustav Mahler...

, under Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...

.

In 1936 she was appointed a singer to the Swedish Court (Hovsångerska
Hovsångare
Hovsångare , literally Court Singer, is a title awarded by the Swedish monarch to a singer who, by their vocal art, has contributed to the international standing of Swedish singing. The formal title was introduced by King Gustav III of Sweden in 1773, with the first recipients being Elisabeth Olin...

), and was elected a member of the Swedish Academy of Music in 1937. On 17 February 1949, she and Ellen Faull
Ellen Faull
Ellen Hartla Faull was an American operatic soprano and distinguished voice teacher. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, she was primarily associated with New York City Opera, where she sang from 1947 until 1978 and created the role of Abigail Borden in Jack Beeson's opera Lizzie Borden in its 1965...

 sang in the first Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

 performance of Mahler's Symphony No. 2 Resurrection
Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)
The Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. Apart from the Eighth Symphony, this symphony was Mahler's most popular and successful work during his lifetime. It is his first major work that would eventually mark his...

, under 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...

.

Karin Branzell sang the contralto/mezzo parts in all of Wagner's operas, some of Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

's, as well as Herodias and Clytemnestra in Richard Strauss's Salome and Elektra, thje Kostelniczka in Leoš Janáček
Leoš Janácek
Leoš Janáček was a Czech composer, musical theorist, folklorist, publicist and teacher. He was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style. Until 1895 he devoted himself mainly to folkloristic research and his early musical output was influenced by...

's Jenůfa
Jenufa
Jenůfa is an opera in three acts by Leoš Janáček to a Czech libretto by the composer, based on the play Její pastorkyňa by Gabriela Preissová. It was first performed at the Brno Theater, Brno, 21 January 1904...

and Wilhelm Peterson-Berger
Wilhelm Peterson-Berger
Olof Wilhelm Peterson-Berger was a Swedish composer and music critic...

's Arnljot, and many other roles. She often sang with Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior
Lauritz Melchior was a Danish and later American opera singer. He was the pre-eminent Wagnerian tenor of the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and has since come to be considered the quintessence of his voice type.-Biography:...

, who became her lifelong friend and who considered her an unmatched Brangäne in Tristan and Isolde and an unforgettable Fricka and Ortrud. She sang Venus to Melchior's Tannhäuser at his Metropolitan Opera debut, and Brangäne with Melchior and Kirsten Flagstad
Kirsten Flagstad
Kirsten Målfrid Flagstad was a Norwegian opera singer and a highly regarded Wagnerian soprano...

 in 1938. Unlike Melchior, she defended Flagstad when she was accused of not speaking out about the Nazi occupation of Norway.

After retirement from the opera stage, Karin Branzell taught at the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...

 in New York, and gave a number of lieder recitals.

She died in Altadena, California
Altadena, California
Altadena is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in Los Angeles County, California, United States, approximately from the downtown Los Angeles Civic Center, and directly north of the city of Pasadena, California...

, on 15 December 1974, aged 81. Her death was due to an embolism while recovering from a pelvic fracture.

Recordings

Karin Branzell made a number of recordings of opera, operetta and lieder, and she appears on The Record of Singing
The Record of Singing
The Record of Singing is a compilation of classical-music singing from the first half of the 20th century, the era of the 78-rpm record.It was issued on LP by EMI, successor to the British company His Master's Voice — perhaps the leading organization in the early history of audio recording.The...

. She recorded a complete Das Rheingold
Das Rheingold
is the first of the four operas that constitute Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen . It was originally written as an introduction to the tripartite Ring, but the cycle is now generally regarded as consisting of four individual operas.Das Rheingold received its premiere at the National Theatre...

with Friedrich Schorr
Friedrich Schorr
Friedrich Schorr , was a renowned Austrian-Hungarian bass-baritone opera singer of Jewish origin. He later became a naturalized American....

 and the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra under Artur Bodanzky
Artur Bodanzky
Artur Bodanzky was an Austrian-American conductor particularly associated with the operas of Wagner.- Career :...

 in 1937. That same year she recorded Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...

with René Maison
René Maison
René Maison was a prominent Belgian operatic tenor, particularly associated with heroic roles of the French, Italian and German repertories.-Career:...

 and Kirsten Flagstad with the Met Orchestra under Maurice Abravanel
Maurice Abravanel
Maurice Abravanel was aSwiss-American Jewish conductor of classical music. He is remembered as the conductor of the Utah Symphony Orchestra for over 30 years.-Life:...

. In 1939 she recorded Magdalena in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...

with Schorr and Charles Kullman
Charles Kullman
Charles Kullman , originally Charles Kullmann, was an American tenor who enjoyed a wide-ranging career, both in Europe and America.- Life and career :...

, with the Met Orchestra under Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf
Erich Leinsdorf was a naturalized American Austrian conductor. He performed and recorded with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States and Europe, earning a reputation for exacting standards as well as an acerbic personality...

 (9 days after Bodanzky's death). She also recorded a program of lieder with the baritone Mack Harrell
Mack Harrell
Mack Harrell was an American baritone who was regarded as one of the greatest concert singers of his generation....

, father of the cellist Lynn Harrell
Lynn Harrell
Lynn Harrell is an American classical cellist.-Biography:Harrell was born in New York City of musician parents; his father was the baritone Mack Harrell and his mother, Marjorie Fulton, was a violinist. At the age of eight he decided to learn to play the cello. When Lynn was 12, his family moved...

.

Sources

  • Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed, 1954
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