Helen Watts had a really special contralto voice. She was in the same league as Kathleen Ferrier and Maureen Forrester. Her voice was very rich and sonorous at the same time. Her vocal production was very good, and you can’t hear any kind of grabbing with the vocal or swallowing muscles. I did not know of her until I came across some of her recordings on the internet. I hope that you enjoy her singing as much as I do.
JS Bach,“Widerstehe doch der Sünde” BWV 54, Cantata 54
Widerstehe doch der Sünde,
Sonst ergreifet dich ihr Gift.
Lass dich nicht den Satan blenden;
Denn die Gottes Ehre schänden,
Trifft ein Fluch, der tödlich ist.
JS Bach, “Do Resist Sin”, from Cantata 54 BWV 45
Do resist sin,
Or else its poison will take hold of you.
Do not let Satan bedazzle you,
For those who disgrace God’s honor
Will meet a curse that is deadly.
JS Bach, Erbarme dich, Aira aus St Matthäus Passion, BWV 244
Erbarme dich, mein Gott,
Um meiner Zähren Willen!
Schaue hier, Herz und Auge
Weint vor dir bitterlich.
Erbarme dich, erbarme dich
JS Bach, Have Mercy, Aria from St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244
Have mercy, my God,
for the sake of my tears!
Look here, heart and eyes
weep bitterly before you.
Have mercy, have mercy!
But who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner’s fire.
Schubert, “Gebet”, entsprechend Fouqué, D815, 1894
Du Urquell aller Gute,
Du Urquell aller Macht,
Lindhauchend aus der Blüte,
Hochdonnernd aus der Schlacht.
Allwärts ist du bereitet
Ein Tempel und ein Fest,
Allwärts von dir geleitet,
Wer gern sich leiten lässt.
Du siehst in dies mein Herze
Kennst seine Lust und Not,
Mild winkt der Heimat Kerze,
Kühn ruft glorwürd’ger Tod.
Mit mir in eins zusammen schlingt,
Hier sich Kindleins Huld,
Und draussen leuchten Flammen
Abbrennend Schmach und Schuld.
Bereit bin ich zu sterben,
Im Kampf der Ahnen werth,
Nur sichre vor Verderben,
Mit Weib and Kind am Herd.
Dein ist in mir die Liebe,
Die diesen beiden quillt,
Dein auch sind mut’ge Triebe,
Davon die Brust mir schwillt.
Kann es sich mild gestalten,
So lass es, Herr, gescheh’n,
Den Frieden fürder walten
Und Sitt‘ und Ruh bestehn.
Wo nicht, so gib zum Werke
Uns Licht in Sturmesnacht,
Du ew’ge Lieb‘ und Stärke,
Dein Wollen sei vollbracht.
Wohin du mich willst haben,
Mein Herr! Ich steh bereit,
Zu frommen Liebesgaben
Wie auch zum wackern Streit.
Dien Bot‘ in Schlacht und Reise,
Dein Bot‘ im stillen Haus,
Ruh’ich auf alle Weise
Doch einst im Himmel aus.
Schubert, Prayer, after Fouqué, D815, 1894
Primal source of all goodness,
Primal source of all power,
Breathing flagrantly from blossoms,
Thundering mightily from battler.
Everywhere a temple and a feast
Are prepared for you;
Everywhere you lead those,
Who are willingly led.
You look into this heart of mine,
You know its pleasure and its pain,
Gently the candle of my homeland beckons,
Boldy a glorious death summons.
Here a child’s grace is entwined
With me as one,
And outside flames glow,
Burning away shame and guilt.
I am prepared to die in battle,
Worthy of my forefathers,
As long as my wife and child at home
Are safe from ruin.
Your love is within me,
Flowing to these two;
Yours, too, are the courageous urges,
That swell my breast.
If it can come about mercifully,
Then, Lord, let it happen:
Let peace reign again,
And order and calm prevail.
If not, then give us light for our task
On stormy nights;
You who are eternal love and strength,
May your will be done.
Wherever you would send me, Lord,
I stand prepared;
Whether for gifts of devoted love
Or for the valiant fight.
Your messenger in battle and in journey,
Your messenger in the tranquil home,
Whatever comes to pass,
I shall one day rest in heaven.
Helen Watts
December 7, 1927 – October 7, 2009
Helen Watts was a contralto who had a career spanning 35 years as one of the most admired and resourceful singers on the concert platform, in opera and recordings, working with three generations of conductors.
She was Born in Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, and she did not come from a musical background. Her father was a pharmacist in the county town of Haverfordwest. However, at the Abbots Bromley school in Staffordshire, she was encouraged to apply to the Royal Academy of Music, London, where she studied with Caroline Hatchard.
Her first professional engagement was a broadcast with the Welsh Home Service in 1950 and, during the next four years, she made a number of radio appearances, including a concert performance of Gluck’s Orpheus in 1953. This brought her to the attention of the conductor Geraint Jones, who recommended her to Malcolm Sargent, and she made her Proms debut in 1955, singing Bach arias.
Watts’s career on disc began with roles in Handel’s operas Semele and Sosarme, conducted by Anthony Lewis. She would eventually record scores of Bach cantatas and oratorios, with conductors including Ernest Ansermet, Benjamin Britten, Thurston Dart, Otto Klemperer and, above all, Helmut Rilling, with whom she sang more than 40 cantatas in his monumental Bach edition for Hänsler Classics with the Stuttgart Bach Collegium.
Although most closely associated with the music of Bach and Handel – she recorded the contralto part in Messiah several times – Watts’s repertory ranged from Monteverdi to Mozart to Delius, Britten, Tippett, Schoenberg and Mahler. Her many other recordings include Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, conducted by Adrian Boult (her favorite), Vaughan Williams’s Riders to the Sea and Sir John in Love, both conducted by Meredith Davies, Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben, accompanied by Geoffrey Parsons, and Welsh songs by Mansel Thomas with the Treorchy male voice choir.
Watts had perfected her art in British choral societies, appearing as a chorister and then soloist in performances. This gave her a solid technique that meant she could be relied upon in almost any kind of music. When Mahler’s Third Symphony received its first performance at the Proms in 1963, conducted by Norman Del Mar, Watts was the soloist, and she later recorded it, as well as the Second and Eighth Symphonies with Sir Georg Solti.
Solti cast her in several roles in Wagner’s Ring. John Culshaw, who produced Decca’s recording of Götterdämmerung in Vienna in 1964, in which she sang the role of the first Norn, recalled: “When Helen Watts began to sing the first line, we knew we had got the sound we wanted. And so great an impression did she make that within a day she was summoned by Karajan … and engaged on the spot for the Salzburg festival. News in Vienna spreads quickly, via the orchestra of course.”
Performances on the concert platform took up most of her career, but Watts always returned to opera. Her first roles were with the Handel Opera Society, starting in 1958 with Didymus in Theodora, later adding Ino and Juno in Semele and the title role in Rinaldo.
When Britten’s English Opera Group made its momentous tour of the Soviet Union in 1964, Watts sang the title role in The Rape of Lucretia. Years later, when she reprised the role in London, the critic of Opera magazine praised her “restraint and self-control (that) made it the more affecting”.
Her Covent Garden debut came in 1965, as the First Maid in Strauss’s Elektra, followed by Erda in Das Rheingold, which she also sang for Solti with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Sosostris in Tippett’s The Midsummer Marriage in 1968 proved to be an ideal role. She took part in the 1968 Covent Garden staging, later recorded it with Colin Davis, and sang it again for Welsh National Opera in 1976. Her debut with WNO had been as Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff in 1969, with Evans in the title role, a performance now issued on CD. Watts described this as “a heaven-sent opportunity to play comedy”. In 1971 she sang Farnace in Mozart’s Mitridate at the Salzburg festival.