Edda Moser

Edda Moser (Frau Kammersängerin) (born October 27, 1938) is a German soprano.

Personal History

Born in Berlin, Germany, she is the daughter of the musicologist Hans Joachim Moser.

Moser made her debut as Kate Pinkerton, in 1962. In 1968, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera, in the role of Wellgunde in "Das Rheingold", and sang there several roles for nine seasons. These roles included the parts of Donna Anna ("Don Giovanni") and the Königin der Nacht ("Die Zauberflöte"), both by Mozart.

She maintained an extensive repertoire, singing both dramatic coloratura and lirico spinto roles. She played Donna Anna in Joseph Losey's movie of "Don Giovanni". She was one of the original performers of Hans Werner Henze's oratorio "Das Floß der Medusa" which she created on disc, as the intended premiere in Hamburg was cancelled after a disturbance.

After retiring from opera, Edda Moser remained active as a recitalist during the late nineties. She gave several memorable concerts in Germany with Ivan Törzs at the piano (Dresden, Semper Opera House 1997, Stadttheater Giessen 1999) with programs ranging from Johann Adolph Hasse to Clara Schumann and Richard Strauss. She gave her farewell performance in Munich in 1999 at the Cuvilliés Theatre.

Currently, Edda Moser is much involved in promoting the use of proper German instead of Denglisch. In 2006 she founded the yearly "Festspiel der Deutschen Sprache." Three CDs documenting this festival have appeared thus far at the German publishing house "Edition Lübbe".

She is a professor of singing at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne.

Voice Type and Artistry

The best description of Edda Moser's voice is by John Carroll on Nicholas E. Limansky's website "The Legacy of the Diva". From his analysis of both her recordings of Mozart's "Popoli di Tessaglia" we quote the following passages, with kind permission of Mr. Limansky:

"Moser's voice was an anomaly; it had the rich warmth of a spinto soprano in the middle and bottom registers but as the voice ascended the timbre (and volume) lightened. Thus her impact was due to the contrasts of vocal elegance and fiery delivery rather than full, exciting high notes. [...] The voice has a fierce, haunting quality that is quite unforgettable and a weight that makes most other coloratura sopranos sound like fireflies in comparison. For a voice of her size and power, however, she loses nothing in agility or range and finds many moments of delicacy in the andante."

Carroll also mentions Moser's "unique dark, smoldering sound."

Edda Moser's Mozart recordings had an enormous impact when they first came out. Mr. Nicholas E. Limansky, in a note written especially for this Wikipedia entry, explains why they were so special to him:

"There is a stunning intensity to her singing and a thrust to her dramatic interpretation that I had never heard before in the singing of those arias [i.e. the Queen of the Night's] (especially the Vengeance aria). It was as if the character was barely managing to keep everything together before combusting in a blaze of hate and fury. The coloratura is clean, the staccati pin point, but the fire and energy in the singing, oh that was something else entirely. Compared with Lucia Popp - one of the other reigning Queens at the time, it is true that Moser could not match the clear coolness of Popp’s superb top register, but whereas Popp stunned by her icy indifference, Moser seared the listener’s ears with a raging inferno of vocalism. And she duplicated this when singing the aria in front of audiences. To hear her sing the Vengeance aria is to hear realism carried to an extreme and to find oneself exhausted at its completion.

I was even more impressed by her singing of the concert arias. With Edda Moser, “Popoli di Tessaglia” is the dramatic scena it always should be but rarely is, presented without affectation through the use of her smoky lower register and vibrant, spinning top and an imaginative, colorful musicality. Almost twelve minutes long, the aria is a testament to seductive and musical phrasing - and the ascents to the two top G’s are as inevitable as they are beautifully done. One never suspects throughout the long, demanding piece, that it is one of the hardest arias in the soprano literature.

If possible, her recording of “Ma che vi fece o stelle” is even more inventive in its phrasing and beauty. One of the things I have always loved about Edda Moser was her fearless musicality. When it comes to such bravura arias as this one, most singers are just content to get the notes out and on pitch. Not so with Edda Moser. For instance, when coming to an arpeggiated phrase or figure that other’s would sing legato as written, Moser would often use staccati to highlight the figure and its construction - accenting the point of the phrase in an individual and unforgettable way.

During this complicated aria she does this a number of times and combined with her perfect, vocal attack the aural benefits are such that one can listen to this recording countless times and still find certain personal touches of her singing not noticed before. This is the mark of a very special, individual artist. An elegant artist, there was always poetry in her singing. One unforgettable moment comes after a difficult section near the end - a long high C that Moser picks out of the air and beautifully sustains without a single tremor. As if stopping time, the note suspends in the air with the lightness of the touch of a feather to the listener’s ear. Not once during this, or other of her recorded bravura arias does Moser give the listener even a hint of the difficulty of such feats. Her treatment of the impossible jump to high F integrates it into the phrase rather than isolating the single high note. (This also goes for the staccati cadential figure up to top F that she interpolates at the end of the piece.) If I could only have one recording of Edda Moser that I felt defined her artistry it would be this great performance."

Edda Moser's voice is included on the Voyager Golden Record sent into space by NASA on the Voyager 1 & 2 spacecraft in case it should meet intelligent life. The piece sung is the Queen of the Night's second aria, "Der Hölle Rache" (Hell's Revenge), from Mozart's The Magic Flute, with Wolfgang Sawallisch conducting. This aria contains some of the very highest pitches a human voice is capable of reaching.

Recordings

Operas and operettas (studio recordings)

*Beethoven - Leonore - Leonore
*D'Albert - Abreise - Luise
*Gluck - Orfeo ed Euridice - Amor
*Gounod - Faust (in German "Margarethe" highlights) - Marguerite
*Humperdinck - Hänsel und Gretel - Knusperhexe
*Kálmán - Gräfin Mariza - Manja
*Lehar - Giuditta - Giuditta
*Lehar - Lustige Witwe - Hanna Glawari
*Leoncavallo - Pagliacci (in German "Bajazzo") - Nedda
*Mozart - Apollo et Hyacinthus - Hyacinthus
*Mozart - Don Giovanni - Donna Anna
*Mozart - Idomeneo - Elettra
*Mozart - Schauspieldirektor - Mademoiselle Silberklang
*Mozart - Zauberflöte - Königin der Nacht
*Orff - Prometheus - Chorführerin I
*Rameau - Hippolyte et Aricie - prêtresse, chasseresse
*Schubert - Verschworenen - Gräfin Ludmilla
*Schumann - Genoveva - Genoveva
*O. Strauss - Walzertraum - Franzi Steingrüber
*Suppé - Boccaccio - Beatrice
*Verdi - Don Carlos (in German, highlights) - Elisabetta
*Wagner - Rheingold, Götterdämmerung - Wellgunde
*Weber - Abu Hassan - Fatime

Religious music

*Bach - Magnificat (BWV 243)
*Beethoven - Missa Solemnis
*Handel - Brockes Passion
*Mozart - Krönungsmesse
*Mozart - Vesperae solennes de confessore

Concert arias and operatic recitals

*Various albums with Mozart Concert Arias on EMI and Berlin Classics (with Jeanette Scovotti)
*Mendelssohn - Infelice! Ah, Ritorna, Eta Felice
*Opern-Recital - arias from Tannhauser, Oberon, Ariadne auf Naxos, Alceste, Rinaldo, Iphigenie en Tauride, La Clemenza di Tito, Münchner Rundfunkorchester, conductor Peter Schneider
*Wagner - aria's (Isolde, Brünnhilde) Ljubljana Symphony Orchestra, conductor Anton Nanut

Lieder

Various albums on EMI with songs by Robert Schumann (Frauenliebe und -leben), Clara Schumann (Drei Lieder nach Friedrich Rückert), Brahms, Wolf (Mignon Lieder), Strauss (Brentano Lieder, Ophelia Lieder), Pfitzner, and Schubert.

ymphonies

*Beethoven - 9th symphony
*Mahler - 8th symphony

Various

*Cavalieri - La Rappresentazione di Anima e di Corpo - Vita Mondana
*Henze - Cantatas "Being Beauteous," "Cantata della Fiaba Estrema," "Whispers from Heavenly Death"
*Henze - Das Floß der Medusa - Nadia
*Haydn - Jahreszeiten - Hanne
*Bruno Maderna - Studi per 'Il processo' di Franz Kafka
*Schumann - Paradies und die Peri - Peri
*Schumann - Des Sängers Fluch, op.139
*Schumann - Spanisches Liederspiel

poken Word

*Fairy tales for Christmas by Hans Christian Andersen
*Poems to the Moon (Mondgedichte)

Live recordings

*Henze - Novae de infinito laudes
*Mozart - Don Giovanni - Donna Anna (Met, 1971)
*Mozart - Mitridate - Aspasia
*Verdi - Rigoletto - Gilda
*Wagner - Walküre, first act - Sieglinde

Anthologies

*Great Moments of . . . Edda Moser [EMI BOX SET]
*Edda Moser singt Mozart EMI 2006

Interview

Edda Moser im Gespräch mit Holger Wemhof (Interview CD from 2006) comes free with the EMI Mozart anthology "Edda Moser singt Mozart"

Videoclip

"Sibillando, Ululando" from Händel's Teseo, posted on youtube by gi1ro2la3mo4.

Quote

"I was never interested in making a career - I was only interested in the roles I was singing"

From the interview CD with Holger Wemhof.

Bibliography

Jürgen Kesting, Die großen Sänger (Band 2) 1986, p. 1371-1375 "Tragische Scheuche: Edda Moser"

External links

* [http://www.eddamoser.com The official website of Edda Moser]
* [http://www.myspace.com/eddamoser Edda Moser's MySpace]
* [http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Moser-Edda.htm Edda Moser at www.bach-cantatas.com]
* [http://www.divalegacy.com/ The Legacy of the Diva]
* [http://www.mhs-koeln.de/ Hochschule für Musik Cologne]