1. Frieda Hempel was a German lyric coloratura soprano singer in operatic and concert work who had an international career in Europe and the United States.
15 Facts About Frieda Hempel
1. 2.
Frieda Hempel made a debut in Schwerin in 1905, and was engaged there for the next two years, singing Gilda, Leonora and Woglinde.
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Frieda Hempel made such a success that the Kaiser Wilhelm II requested the Schwerin theater to release her so she could sing in Berlin.
4.
Frieda Hempel made a debut there in 1905 as Frau Fluth and sang at the Bayreuth Festival that year.
5.
Frieda Hempel sang at the Royal Court Opera, Berlin, from 1907 to 1912, where she was admired as Lucia, Marguerite de Valois and Marie.
6.
Frieda Hempel appeared at the Covent Garden, London in 1907 as Bastienne, in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, as Eva and Elsa and again as Frau Fluth: Nellie Melba and Selma Kurz were taking centre stage in the more popular roles.
7.
Frieda Hempel sang regularly in New York thereafter into the 1950s.
8.
Frieda Hempel was the first to sing the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier in New York and in Berlin, and she sang the role in London in 1913.
9.
Frieda Hempel was in the Met 1913 Un ballo in maschera as Oscar, with Caruso, Emmy Destinn, Margaret Matzenauer and Pasquale Amato; the 1916 staging of The Marriage of Figaro with Matzenauer, Geraldine Farrar and Antonio Scotti.
10.
Frieda Hempel had a very wide dramatic range, from Rosina or Queen of the Night to Wagner's Eva and Weber's Euryanthe.
11.
Frieda Hempel became well known for recitals in which she appeared in costume amidst American and Swedish flags as the famous nineteenth-century soprano Jenny Lind; her Swedish role made it possible for Hempel to continue in the limelight despite anti-German sentiment after the wars in Europe.
12.
In 1918, Hempel married the silk merchant and political writer William B Kahn, taking their honeymoon at the Lake Placid Club.
13.
Frieda Hempel published her memoirs in German and English, the latter is titled My Life in Singing.
14.
Frieda Hempel died in Berlin in 1955 at the age of 70.
15.
Frieda Hempel began making records in Germany for Odeon Records in 1906 and later recorded for the Gramophone Company in England as well as the Victor Talking Machine Company and Edison Records in the US.