Grete Forst (August 18, 1878 – June 1, 1942) was an Austrian
soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...
.
Born Margarete Feiglstock to a Jewish family in
Vienna, Forst made her operatic debut in
Cologne in 1900 in the title role of ''
Lucia di Lammermoor'' Three years later, made her
Vienna State Opera debut in the same role and was made a member of the company by
Gustav Mahler
Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and the modernism ...
. In 1908 she sang in the premiere of
Karl Goldmark's ''Ein Wintermärchen'' with
Leopold Demuth
Leopold Demuth (real name ''Leopold Pokorny'' (2 November 1861 in Brno – 4 March 1910 in Czernowitz) was a Moravian operatic baritone. He was celebrated in particular for his successful performances in works by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Giusepp ...
.
She remained in Vienna singing
coloratura
Coloratura is an elaborate melody with runs, trills, wide leaps, or similar virtuoso-like material,''Oxford American Dictionaries''.Apel (1969), p. 184. or a passage of such music. Operatic roles in which such music plays a prominent part, an ...
roles such as
Olympia
The name Olympia may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film
* ''Olympia'' (1938 film), by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the Berlin-hosted Olympic Games
* ''Olympia'' (1998 film), about a Mexican soap opera star who pursues a career as an athlet ...
,
Queen of the Night,
Oscar, and
Fiordiligi, as well as
lyric soprano roles such as
Cio-Cio-San
''Madama Butterfly'' (; ''Madame Butterfly'') is an opera in three acts (originally two) by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa.
It is based on the short story "Madame Butterfly (short story), Madame ...
. After she retired in 1911 upon her marriage to banker Johann Schuschny, she continued her career as a concert singer and teacher in Vienna for many years. She had one child, a son, Fritz Schuschny.
She converted to Catholicism in 1940, but on May 27, 1942 she was placed in a transport to the
Maly Trostenets extermination camp in
Belorussia where she was murdered on June 1, 1942.
Recordings
*
Massé ''
Les noces de Jeannette
''Les noces de Jeannette'' (''Jeannette's Wedding'') is an '' opéra comique'' in one act by Victor Massé to a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré. It had its premiere in Paris in the Salle Favart at the Opéra-Comique, 4 February 1853. ...
'': Air du rossignol avec flûte.
* Rossini ''
Guglielmo Tell
''William Tell'' (french: Guillaume Tell, link=no; it, Guglielmo Tell, link=no) is a French-language opera in four acts by Italian composer Gioachino Rossini to a libretto by Victor-Joseph Étienne de Jouy and L. F. Bis, based on Friedrich Sch ...
'' (in German) ''O Seligkeit'' - the love duet
[Alan Blyth, Malcolm Walker - 1984 "Leo Slezak, with Grete Forst, is hypnotically beautiful, but are a dozen honeyed repetitions of 'Seligkeit', lovingly crooned, quite what this duet, in substance, is?"]
References
External links
* mp
Puccini - ''Madama Butterfly'': "Se tu madre" (1908)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Forst, Grete
1878 births
1942 deaths
Austrian operatic sopranos
Musicians from Vienna
People who died in Maly Trostenets extermination camp
Austrian civilians killed in World War II
Nazi-era ghetto inmates
Austrian Jews who died in the Holocaust
Austrian people executed in Nazi concentration camps
Jewish opera singers
20th-century Austrian women opera singers
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism