Word: materna
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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...first Brünnhilde was not easy to find, for most prima donnas impressed Wagner as being "silly, fastidious schoolgirls." He finally chose Amalie Materna, a big-chested Styrian with a grand manner and a zooming voice. At that first Bayreuth Festival in 1876 one of the Rhine maidens was a pretty young Jewess named Lilli Lehmann. Wagner wanted to adopt her but her mother, who knew the master well, objected. Lehmann was a light coloratura then and no one, least of all Wagner, suspected that she was soon to cultivate dramatic rôles and sing Brünnhilde...