Word: christa
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...major asset: Bernstein had persuaded Mezzo Christa Ludwig to abandon her accustomed role as the youth Octavian for the lead role of the aging Marschallin, usually sung by a soprano. Ludwig's vocal prowess, womanly softness and pathos proved her a perfect choice. Said Bernstein: "She was so marvelous in the last scene that I cried watching her." And that was no Viennese exaggeration...
Otto Klemperer's version, with the Philharmonia and New Philharmonia orchestras (Angel; 2 LPs), has superb soloists, Mezzo-Soprano Christa Ludwig and Tenor Fritz Wunderlich, whose promise was cut short by his accidental death last summer at 35. The orchestra sounds wonderfully clear and portentous, as though this were the last music to be played on the day of doom. Although Klemperer's playing time is actually shorter than Bernstein's, Angel chose to record the piece on three LP sides, filling the fourth with five Mahler songs...
...free translation of the German, it sounded when Walter Berry and his wife Christa Ludwig went at it again last week, snapping and snarling at each other for everyone to hear. And those who did were delighted, for as the villainous Telramund and Ortrud in the Metropolitan Opera's new production of Lohengrin, their domestic-quarrel scene was an electric charge in an otherwise static drama. They did not merely rant and rage: they insinuated, they needled, they enticed. Both marvelous singer-actors, they bent and shaded their voices in a seemingly infinite variety of veiled sneers, smiling threats...
...Christa Ludwig, 32, daughter of German Tenor Anton Ludwig, also prepped as a cabaret singer during the hungry days after World War II, worked on the side as a seamstress (one of her more dubious creations: a red, white and black frock made out of an old Nazi flag). Her mezzo-soprano mother advised her "not to fall in love in a small opera house because then you may have to leave him behind when you go to a big house." Dutifully, Ludwig poured her heart into her art for nine years, finally graduated to the Vienna State Opera...
...Though the profession is land-mined with problems for married singers, they have made a go of it because their careers progressed at the same pace. Today, they shuttle between Vienna, New York and their home in Lucerne (both are Swiss citizens) with their eight-year-old son Wolfgang, Christa's mother, a cook, a secretary and 27 pieces of luggage. They pick and choose their roles so that they can spend most of the year singing together at various opera houses. Wherever they are, they stake out "Christa's room" and "Walter's room" for private...