Elisabeth Höngen had a wide range although she is considered to be a mezzo soprano. She had a beautiful, dramatic voice, and she was an exceptional and very expressive musician. The voice has no drag on it. By this I mean that the airflow goes unimpeded from the lungs up to the resonating cavities of the head. I think that I say this about every singer that I highlight!
You will be able to hear a difference in the quality of the voice when Höngen sings lieder. This is mainly because Höngen had a very large voice, and she had to adjust it to be able to sing intimate lieder well.
With the Verdi, I have given you a live, early Callas to compare with Höngen’s performance. The two voice types are very different. At the time that Callas was recorded singing this aria, she was a dramatic soprano with a upper extension (very high notes). Höngen was a mezzo soprano; she was sometimes even labeled as a contralto. See what you think.
The sleepwalking scene begins at 5:26 min.
I’m very sorry to do this, but I could not find the German translation that Höngen is singing; and, believe me I tried. So, I am giving you the original Italian and an English translation. The words are not what she sings, but you will get the gist of them, especially if you have heard this aria before. This is the famous sleepwalking scene in Verdi’s Macbeth.
LADY MACBETH:
Una macchia è qui tuttora.
Via, ti dico, o maledetta!
Una, Due, gli è questa l’ora!
Tremi tu? non osi entrar?
Un guerrier così codardo?
Oh vergogna! orsù, t’affretta!
Chi poteva in quel vegiardo
Tanto sangue immaginar?
MEDICO:
Che parlò?
LADY:
Di Fiffe il Sire
Sposo e padre or or non era?
Che n’avvenne?
(Si guarda le mani)
E mai pulire queste mani
io non saprò?
Dama – MEDICO:
Oh terror!
LADY MACBETH:
Di sangue umano
Sa qui sempre. Arabia intera
Rimondar sì piccol mano
Co’ suoi balsami non può.
Oimè!
MEDICO:
Geme?
LADY MACBETH:
I panni indossa
Della notte. Or via, ti sbratta!
Banco è spento, e dalla fossa
Chi morì non surse ancor.
MEDICO:
Questo ancor?
LADY MACBETH:
A letto, a letto.
Sfar non puoi la cosa fatta.
Batte alcuno! andiam, Macbetto,
Non t’accusi il tuo pallor.
Dama – MEDICO:
Ah, di lei pietà, Signor!
LADY MACBETH:
There’s still a spot here.
Away, I tell you, curse you!
One, two, it is time!
Are you shaking? Don’t you dare go in?
A soldier and so cowardly?
Shame! Come on, hurry!
Who would have thought that there would be
so much blood in that old man?
DOCTOR:
What did she say?
LADY MACBETH:
The Thane of Fife was he not recently a husband and father?
What happened?
(looking at her hands)
Shall I never be able
to clean these hands?
GENTLEWOMAN – DOCTOR:
Oh, horror!
LADY MACBETH:
There’s still
human blood here. Thee perfumes
of all Arabia could not clean
this little hand.
Alas!
DOCTOR:
Is she moaning?
LADY MACBETH:
Put on your
nightgown. Come on, wash yourself!
Banquo is dead and no-one
has ever come back from the grave.
DOCTOR:
This too?
LADY MACBETH:
To bed, to bed.
What’s done cannot be undone.
Someone is knocking! Come on, Macbeth,
do not let your pallor accuse you.
GENTLEWOMAN – DOCTOR:
Oh, horror!
Lord, have mercy on her!
Compare with a young Callas
The sleepwalking scene begins at 2:35 min. The tempo is much faster, and Callas does take the high note at the end.
Robert Schumann, Op. 25, No. 3 “Der Nussbaum”
Es grünet ein Nussbaum, vor dem Haus,
Duftig,
Luftig
Breitet er blättrig die Blätter aus.
Viel liebliche Blüten stehen dran,
Linde,
Winde
Kommen, sie herzlich zu umfahn.
Es flüstern je zwei zu zwei gepaart,
Neigend,
Beugend
Zierlich zum Kusse die Häuptchen zart.
Sie flüstern von einem Mägdlein, das
Dächte,
Die Nächte
Und Tage lang, wusste ach! selber nicht was.
Sie flüstern—wer mag verstehen so gar
Leise,
Weis’?
Flüstern von Bräut’gam und nächstem Jahr.
Das Mägdlein horchet, es rauscht im Baum;
Sehnend,
Wähnend
Sinkt es lächelnd in Schlaf und Traum.
Robert Schumann, Op. 25, No. 3, “The Nut Tree”
A nut tree blossoms outside the house,
Fragrantly,
Airily,
It spreads its petaled boughs out.
Many lovely blossoms it bears,
Gentle
Winds
Come to caress them tenderly.
Paired together, they whisper,
Inclining,
Bending
Gracefully their delicate heads to kiss.
They whisper of a maiden who
Dreamed,
For nights
And days of, alas, she knew not what.
They whisper—who can understand
So softly
A song?
They whisper of a bridegroom and next year.
The maiden listens, the tree rustles;
Yearning,
Imagining
She sinks smiling into sleep and dreams.
Wagner, Wesendonck Lieder, “Träume” WWV 91, No. 5
Sag, welch wunderbare Träume
Halten meinen Sinn umfangen,
Daß sie nicht wie leere Schäume
Sind in ödes Nichts vergangen?
Träume, die in jeder Stunde,
Jedem Tage schöner blühn,
Und mit ihrer Himmelskunde
Selig durchs Gemüte ziehn!
Träume, die wie hehre Strahlen
In die Seele sich versenken,
Dort ein ewig Bild zu malen:
Allvergessen, Eingedenken!
Träume, wie wenn Frühlingssonne
Aus dem Schnee die Blüten küßt,
Daß zu nie geahnter Wonne,
Sie der neue Tag begrüßt.
Daß sie wachsen, daß sie blühen,
Träumend spenden ihren Duft,
Sanft an deiner Brust verglühen,
Und dann sinken in die Gruft.
Wagner, Wesendonck Lieder, WWV 91, No. 5, “Dreams”
Say, which wondrous dreams
Taking all my senses,
That they have not, empty froth,
Vanished to a barren void?
Dreams, that with every hour
Every day bloom more beautifully ,
And with their heavenly tidings
FLoat blissfully through the soul!
Dreams, that with glorious rays
In which the soul is penetrated,
There to paint an eternal picture:
Forgetting all, remembering one!
Dreams, as when the Spring sun
on the snow kisses blossoms,
That to unimagined bliss,
The the new day welcomes them,
So that they grow and flower,
Dreaming, bestow their scent,
Fade softly away on your breast
And sink into their grave.
Schubert D774, Op. 72, “Auf dem Wasser zu singen”
Mitten im Schimmer der spiegelnden Wellen
Gleitet, wie Schwäne, der wankende Kahn;
Ach, auf der Freude sanft schimmernden Wellen
Gleitet die Seele dahin wie der Kahn;
Denn von dem Himmel herab auf die Wellen
Tanzet das Abendrot rund um den Kahn.
Über den Wipfeln des westlichen Haines
Winket uns freundlich der rötliche Schein;
Unter den Zweigen des östlichen Haines
Säuselt der Kalmus im rötlichen Schein;
Freude des Himmels und Ruhe des Haines
Atmet die Seel’ im errötenden Schein.
Ach, es entschwindet mit tauigem Flügel
Mir auf den wiegenden Wellen die Zeit.
Morgen entschwinde mit schimmerndem Flügel
Wieder wie gestern und heute die Zeit,
Bis ich auf höherem strahlendem Flügel
Selber entschwinde der wechselnden Zeit.
Schubert D774, Op. 72, “To be sung on the water”
Amid the shimmer of the mirroring waves
the rocking boat glides, swan-like,
on gently shimmering waves of joy.
The soul, too, glides like a boat.
For from the sky the setting sun
dances upon the waves around the boat.
Above the tree-tops of the western grove
the red glow beckons kindly to us;
beneath the branches of the eastern grove
the reeds whisper in the red glow.
The soul breathes the joy of heaven,
the peace of the grove, in the reddening glow.
Alas, with dewy wings
time vanishes from me on the rocking waves.
Tomorrow let time again vanish with shimmering
wings, as it did yesterday and today,
until, on higher, more radiant wings,
I myself vanish from the flux of time.
Elisabeth Höngen
December 7, 1906 – August 7, 1997
Elisabeth Höngen, the German mezzo-soprano, had a beautiful, firmly projected voice; but, above all, she was a magnificent singing actress. Karl Bohm, the conductor with whom she worked in Dresden and Vienna, called her “the greatest tragedienne in the world”.
When Bohm left Dresden for Vienna in 1942, he engaged Höngen for the Vienna State Opera, where she remained a member of the company for nearly 30 years. She sang in many of the major opera houses of Europe and America, including La Scala, Covent Garden, the Paris Opera, Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires, and the Metropolitan, usually in operas by Mozart, Wagner or Richard Strauss, but in Austria and Germany she also took on roles such as Carmen, Lady Macbeth, Princess Eboli in Don Carlos and Amneris in Aida.
Höngen was born in Gevelsberg, Westphalia, in 1906. At university in Berlin she studied German Language and Literature, as well as the violin, musicology and singing at the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik. She made her operatic debut in 1933 at Wuppertal, then in 1935 she moved to Dusseldorf and in 1940 to the Dresden State Opera. There she came under the influence of Karl Bohm, the Music Director. Under his baton she sang Klytemnestra in Elektra and Herodias in Salome, roles in which she later became world-famous; she took part in Monteverdi’s Orfeo in the performing version made by Carl Orff; and sang in the premiere of Die Zauberinzel (1942), an opera by Heinrich Sutermeister based on The Tempest.
Höngen first appeared in Vienna as Ortrud in Lohengrin in 1942 and the following year became a member of the company. She sang Lady Macbeth during the “Verdi Week” of 1943, and a few weeks later could be heard as Carmen, or Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro, or in one of her Wagner roles.
She first visited La Scala in 1943, singing Klytemnestra, and returned in 1949/50 for Fricka in Das Rheingold and Die Walkure, and Waltraute in Götterdämmerung. In 1947, she went to Covent Garden with the VSO company, and sang Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Marcellina and Herodias. She did not return to Covent Garden until 1960, when she gave an unforgettable performance of Klytemnestra.
She took part in the first post-war Bayreuth Festival in 1951, singing Fricka and Waltraute. The following year she made her Metropolitan debut in New York as Herodias, and also sang Klytemnestra and Waltraute. Visiting the Paris Opera with the Wiener Staatsoper in 1953, she sang not only Klytemnestra, but the Third Lady in Die Zauberflote as well.
Meanwhile, in Vienna Höngen was adding to her repertory: she sang Baba the Turk in The Rake’s Progress, the Countess in Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades and, in 1955, the Nurse in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten, as part of the celebrations for the opening of the rebuilt State Opera.
Towards the end of the Sixties she played character parts with her customary dramatic skill: Grandmother Bura in Jenufa, Mary in Der fliegende Hollander, Ludmila in The Bartered Bride and the Fortune-teller in Arabella. She retired from the stage in 1971, having taught at the Vienna Academy of Music since 1957.