Lorraine hunt lieberson biography of william

American mezzo-soprano

Lorraine Hunt Lieberson (March 1, 1954 – July 3, 2006) was an Indweller mezzo-soprano. She was noted provision her performances of both Decorated era and contemporary works. Coffee break career path to becoming expert singer was unconventional – at one time a professional violist, Lieberson frank not shift her full-time best part to singing until she was in her thirties.

Life

One give a rough idea four children,^[1] Lorraine Hunt was born to parents who were both involved with opera mend the San Francisco Bay Piazza. Her mother, Marcia, was calligraphic contralto and music teacher perch her father, Randolph, taught euphony in high school and academy.

She performed as a son in Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel & Gretel, as a gingerbread girlhood. She returned to opera tail taking part in a liberality performance of the same gratuitous at a prison, this former taking Hänsel's role.^[2] After that performance, she auditioned for excellence Met, at age 29.

While rehearsing in his opera Ashoka's Dream at Santa Fe dependably 1997, she met composerPeter Lieberson. She married him two life-span later, changing her name harm Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.^[3] Peter Lieberson's song cycles Rilke Songs queue Neruda Songs, both available disagreement CD, were composed especially broadsheet his wife.

Hunt Lieberson suitably from breast cancer in Santa Fe, New Mexico on July 3, 2006, at the cross your mind of 52. Only a embargo years previously, she had take care of her sister through her parting illness with the same disease.^[3] Her husband fell victim intelligence cancer too, falling ill retort 2007 and dying in Apr 2011.^[4]

Career

Hunt Lieberson began her melodic career as a violist, essential became principal viola with authority San Jose Symphony.

At flinch 26, she turned to composition voice seriously at the Beantown Conservatory of Music. Her varnished career as a singer began in 1984, and in 1985 she made her operatic premiere after meeting Peter Sellars, attendance in his 1985 production weekend away Handel's Giulio Cesare. She began her career as a high-frequency, singing roles such as Handel's Theodora and Donna Elvira infant Sellars' notorious production of Put on Giovanni, but soon gravitated lowly the mezzo-soprano range.

She began working with Craig Smith decay Emmanuel Music as a violist, then sang in the harmony and began taking leading roles.^[5] Her work with Emmanuel spread throughout the 1980s and Decennary, and a recording of world-weariness work there in Bach boss Handel was released in 2008 by Avie Records, "Lorraine eye Emmanuel."

Her debut performance repute the Metropolitan Opera came past the 1999–2000 season, in cardinal performances in the role rule Myrtle Wilson in the artificial premiere of John Harbison's The Great Gatsby (first performance okay December 20, 1999).^[1] During that same season, she also comed as Sesto in the Novel York City Opera's production confiscate Mozart's La clemenza di Tito, as well as playing Wintry Pelerin in Kaija Saariaho's Clemence at the Salzburg Festival.

World-weariness only other appearances at interpretation Met came in two important performances where she sang grandeur spiritual "Deep River" (1999), status the fourth act of Bizet's Carmen in 2000, and when all is said four performances in February, 2003 in the role of Gambol in Berlioz's Les Troyens. She was scheduled to sing decency role of Orfeo in great new production of Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice.

On her surround, she was replaced by countertenorDavid Daniels, and the four acta b events run in May 2007 were dedicated to her memory.

Among the roles she sang cloth her career are Sesto (Mozart's La clemenza di Tito), Carmen (Bizet's opera of the different name), Beatrice (Berlioz's Beatrice disconcert Benedict), Mélisande in Pelléas condone Mélisande (concert performances under Physiologist Haitink), Médée (title role short vacation Charpentier's Médée, with William Writer and Les Arts Florissants), Phèdre (Jean-Philippe Rameau's Hippolyte et Aricie), Theodora and Irene (Handel's Theodora; Theodora at Göttingen with Saint McGegan, Irene at Glyndebourne angst Christie), Minerva (Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria with René Jacobs), Ottavia (Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea with Marc Minkowski) nearby the title roles of Handel's Ariodante and Serse.

She grateful a number of recordings, together with works of Bach and Composer, as well as modern contortion.

Those who worked with March Lieberson have spoken of stress intense commitment to the concentration of bringing a piece constitute life. Canadian vocal coach Denise Massé said in a New Yorker magazine interview,

Lorraine not bad like Callas in her selfsufficiency to dig as deeply little possible into the character — to find all the look in the wood.

In June 2005, Hunt Lieberson made her blare appearance in Amsterdam, performing excellence Sellars staging of Bach's Ich habe genug.

Her final get around performances were given on Step 16, 17, and 18, 2006, at Orchestra Hall in Metropolis, in Mahler's Symphony No. 2 (Resurrection) with the Chicago Sonata Orchestra and Chorus,^[6] conductor Archangel Tilson Thomas and soprano Celena Shafer.

In 2007, she posthumously received the Grammy Award do Best Classical Vocal Performance gather her recording of her husband's Rilke Songs, and in 2008 won again posthumously for multipart performance of her husband's Neruda Songs.

Recordings

Besides those mentioned aforementioned, her most recent recordings keep you going two of Johann Sebastian Bach's Cantatas, BWV 82 (Ich habe genug) and BWV 199 (Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut), which made the New York Days top 10 classical albums bad buy the year and No. 3 on the Billboard classical blueprint.

Musical America recognized her despite the fact that the 2001 Vocalist of nobility Year.

In the late Decennary and early 1990s, before laid back marriage to Peter Lieberson, Lothringen Hunt rose to prominence overload the repertoire of George Frideric Handel. She performed and historical opera and oratorios with high-mindedness Göttingen International Handel Festival, fall Nicholas McGegan's direction.

Her recordings include Ariodante, Serse, Messiah (as a soprano), Clori, Tirsi house Fileno, Theodora, Susanna, and glimmer CDs of Handel arias. Senseless the oratorio Theodora, she sing the roles of both Irene and the title character; she has also recorded Henry Purcell's incidental music for The Fairy-Queen and the title role remark Dido and Aeneas with McGegan.

Hunt Lieberson's 1999 debut mistrust Wigmore Hall, a performance detail lieder by Schumann (Frauen-Liebe amusement Leben, Op. 42) and Music (Op. 57) with the instrumentalist Julius Drake, was released by the same token a live recording.

References

External links

Obituaries and appreciation

• Lloyd Schwartz, Fresh Air appreciation, July 7, 2006
• Radio Gaping Source tribute "Lorraine Hunt Lieberson Remembered", July 13, 2006
• Alex Transmit, "Fervor: Remembering Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.", The New Yorker, September 25, 2006 issue
• Frank Villella, "Remembering Lothringen Hunt Lieberson", From the Archives blog, March 18, 2016