Margaret Matzenauer

Margaret Matzenauer

Margaret Matzenauer (sometimes spelled Margarete Matzenauer or Margarethe Matzenaur) (1 June 1881, Temesvár, Austria-Hungary (now Timişoara, Romania) — 19 May 1963, Van Nuys, California) was a mezzo-soprano singer with an opulent timbre and a wide range to her voice. She performed key works from both the Italian and German operatic repertoires in Europe and the United States.

Biography

Born in the Banat region of Hungary, her father Ludwig was a conductor; her mother an opera singer. She considered herself Hungarian although she had Germanic blood and the place of her birth is now in western Romania.

She studied opera in Graz and Berlin, making her operatic debut in 1901 as "Puck" in Weber's Oberon. She began singing major roles such as Azucena in Il trovatore, Carmen, Mignon, Waltraute and Erda in the Ring operas and Ortrud in Lohengrin. She first achieved fame in Europe as a contralto and mezzo-soprano, and she was engaged to appear at the 1911 Bayreuth Festival. She was tempted to tackle soprano parts as well but this expansion upwards of her repertoire did not prove to be an unqualified success due to limitations with her highest notes.

Matzenauer made her debut (as a mezzo) at the New York Metropolitan Opera in Aida on 13 November 1911, singing Amneris on opening night with a cast that also featured Emmy Destinn as Aida and Enrico Caruso as Radames, with Toscanini on the podium. A few days later she displayed her versatility by appearing in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.

She reputedly had a so-called photographic memory, too, and she saved the day for the Met's management on 1 January 1912 when, with only a few days' notice, she appeared as Kundry in the opera Parsifal, a highly demanding role that she had not sung before.

Matzenauer remained at the Met for a total of 19 seasons, delivering a wide variety of roles including Eboli in the first Met production of Don Carlo (1920), Santuzza, Marina in Boris Godunov, Leonore in Fidelio and Brünnhilde in Die Walküre. She gave her farewell Met performance on 17 February 1930 as Amneris, but she continued singing opera elsewhere and giving concerts. Matzenaur also took up teaching; two of her pupils were mezzo-sopranos Blanche Thebom and Nell Tangeman. Her last stage appearance was in a Broadway comedy, Vicki, in 1942.^[1]

In 1911, she had married one of her Met colleagues, namely the fine Italian-born dramatic tenor Edoardo Ferrari-Fontana (1878-1936). Consequently, she acquired automatic Italian citizenship. The marriage ended in divorce in 1917, however.

Matzenauer made a sizeable number of 78-rpm recordings, many of which are available on CD reissues. She died in 1963 at the Sherman Way Convalescent Hospital.^[2]

External links

• Margarete Matzenauer

References

1. ^ "Margaret Matzenauer, 81, Dies; Contralto at Met in Caruso Era; Leading Member of Company for 19 Years--Acclaimed for Versatility in Roles". The New York Times. May 20, 1963. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60E12F63958137A93C2AB178ED85F478685F9. 
2. ^ "Margarete Matzenauer Former Opera Star, Dies". Associated Press in the Hartford Courant. 20 May 1963. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/courant/access/919037212.html?dids=919037212:919037212&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:AI&type=historic&date=May+20,+1963&author=&pub=Hartford+Courant&desc=Margarete+Matzenauer+Former+Opera+Star,+Dies&pqatl=google. Retrieved 2010-05-09. "Margarete Matzenauer, onetime Metropolitan Opera prima donna, died Sunday at 81. She died at Sherman Way Convalescent Hospital where ..." 

Persondata
Name	Matzenauer, Margarete
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1881
Place of birth
Date of death	1963
Place of death