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Lisa Della Casa (2 February 191910 December 2012) was a Swiss soprano most admired for her interpretations of major heroines in operas by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Strauss, and of German lieder. She was also described as “the most beautiful woman on the operatic stage”.〔Bibliography: "Lisa Della Casa: Liebe einer Diva, Porträt der Sopranistin"; German documentary film by Thomas Voigt and Wolfgang Wunderlich, BBC Motion Gallery, Sony BMG Music (Germany) GmbH, Wunderlich Medien GbR, United GmbH & Co. KG, Privatarchiv Lisa Della Casa, 2008〕 ==Biography== Della Casa was born in Burgdorf, Switzerland to an Italian-Swiss father, Francesco Della Casa, and a Bavarian-born mother, Margarete Mueller. She began studying singing at the age of 15 at the Zurich Conservatory, and her teachers included Margarete Haeser. She made her operatic debut in the title role of Puccini's ''Madama Butterfly'' at Solothurn-Biel Municipal Theater in 1940. She joined the ensemble of Zurich Municipal Opera House in 1943 (staying there until 1950) and sang various parts, from the Queen of the Night in Mozart's ''The Magic Flute'' to Dorabella in ''Così fan tutte''. Later she sang Fiordiligi. She sang the part of Zdenka in the performance of Richard Strauss's ''Arabella'' at Zurich Municipal Opera House alongside Maria Cebotari's Arabella in 1946. Cebotari recognized her talent and introduced her at the Salzburg Festival in 1947, where she sang Zdenka again in a production starring Maria Reining and Hans Hotter. After the premiere performance, Strauss himself commented, "The little Della Casa will one day be Arabella!" ("Die Kleine Della Casa wird eines Tages Arabella sein!").〔Debeljevic, Dragan. ''Ein Leben mit LISA DELLA CASA oder'', "In dem Schatten ihrer Locken", Atlantis Musikbuch-Verlag Zürich, 1975; ISBN 3-7611-0474-X, pg. 30.〕 That same year on 18 October, she made her debut at the Vienna State Opera House, singing the part of Nedda in Leoncavallo's ''Pagliacci''. Soon she moved to Vienna and joined the ensemble of the Vienna State Opera House. In 1949, she made her debut at La Scala in Milan as Sophie in Strauss's ''Der Rosenkavalier'' and Marzelline in Beethoven's ''Fidelio''. Victor de Sabata, the musical director of La Scala at that time, tried to persuade her to move to La Scala, but she chose to remain in Vienna. Della Casa made her British debut singing the part of Countess Almaviva in Mozart's ''The Marriage of Figaro'' at the Glyndebourne Festival. She went on to sing the title role in ''Arabella'' for the first time, at the Bavarian State Opera House in Munich in 1951. It became her signature role. She sang Eva in Wagner's ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'' at the Bayreuth Festival in 1952, in what proved to be her only appearance at Bayreuth. In 1953, Della Casa sang Arabella in the Bavarian State Opera Company's performances at Covent Garden, and sang the part of Octavian in ''Der Rosenkavalier'' for the first time, at the Salzburg Festival. On 20 November 1953, she made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York (the Met) as the Countess Almaviva in ''The Marriage of Figaro''. Since her debut, she sang a total of 173 complete opera performances at the Met until her last performance there on 9 December 1967 as Countess Almaviva. Her repertoire at the Met was as follows: * ''The Marriage of Figaro'': Countess Almaviva (47 performances) * ''Don Giovanni'': Donna Elvira (34 performances) * ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'': Eva (23 performances) * ''Der Rosenkavalier'': Die Feldmarschallin (17 performances) and Octavian (8 performances) * ''Der Zigeunerbaron'': Saffi (17 performances) * ''Arabella'': Arabella (16 performances) * ''Ariadne auf Naxos'': Ariadne (4 performances) * ''Lohengrin'': Elsa (4 performances) * ''Madama Butterfly'': Cio-Cio-San (2 performances) * ''La bohème'': Mimì (1 performance) In 1955, she sang the part of the Marschallin in Richard Strauss's ''Der Rosenkavalier'' for the first time; this was in a series of performances to celebrate the opening of the restored Vienna State Opera House. As a result, she had sung all three parts - the Marschallin, Octavian, Sophie - in ''Der Rosenkavalier'' as well as a single performance as Annina replacing an indisposed singer in Zurich. The Salzburg Festival was one of the most important venues in her career. She sang Ariadne in Strauss's ''Ariadne auf Naxos'' and Donna Elvira in Mozart's ''Don Giovanni'' in 1954, (once again) Donna Elvira in 1956, Chrysothemis in Strauss's ''Elektra'' and Countess Almaviva in 1957 (she also gave a recital at the Festival in the same year which has been preserved as a recording) and Arabella in 1958. Colleague Inge Borkh stated emphatically: "She was THE Arabella!" ("Sie war DIE Arabella!)"〔 Della Casa sang Pamina in ''The Magic Flute'' in 1959. On 26 July 1960, the newly built Salzburg Festspielhaus opened with a performance of ''Der Rosenkavalier'' under Herbert von Karajan. She sang the part of the Marschallin in this performance with Sena Jurinac as Octavian and Hilde Gueden as Sophie. Originally, Karajan and film director Paul Czinner planned to make a film of the performance; they asked Della Casa to sing the part of the Marschallin in the film too and she gladly accepted. But due to Walter Legge, well-known recording producer of EMI and husband of Dame Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Della Casa was replaced by Schwarzkopf for the film (a reverse of the 1954 Salzburg Festival production of Mozart's ''Don Giovanni'', where Schwarzkopf sang in the performances, but was replaced by Della Casa for the film production). Shocked, although she sang the scheduled performances of the season (the Marschallin and Countess Almaviva in ''The Marriage of Figaro'', she would never sing there again. When asked several times subsequently to do so, she declined, replying: “No, sir, Salzburg für mich ist gestorben." ("No, sir, for me, Salzburg is dead.")〔 She surprised her audiences by singing the title role in ''Salome'' at the Bavarian State Opera House in Munich in 1961. Colleague Inge Borkh said that Della Casa was "very sexy ... because she did not seek to be so!" ("Sie war sehr sexy... unbewusst!")〔Interview with Inge Borkh in ''Lisa Della Casa: Liebe einer Diva, Porträt der Sopranistin”, German documentary film, 2008.〕 From this time onward, she took few dramatic parts in Italian operas, succeeding notably as Desdemona in Verdi's ''Otello'' and the title role in Puccini's ''Tosca'', but finally returned to lyric parts in Mozart and Richard Strauss operas. In 1964, when Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (now both her colleague and rival at the Vienna State Opera House) made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera of New York as the Marschallin in ''Der Rosenkavalier'', Della Casa sang Octavian . Anneliese Rothenberger and Rolf Gerard attested that, contrary to Bing's and the public's desire for scandal, no hard feelings between the two sopranos were apparent during this period. Gerard, who was working at the time with famous Met director Rudolf Bing, called the latter a "publicity genius".〔Interview of Lisa Della Casa with Heinz Fischer-Karwin, ORF TV, 1967.〕 Other significant roles were Cleopatra in Handel's ''(Caesar )'', the Countess in Strauss's ''Capriccio'', Ilia in Mozart's ''Idomeneo'', and the female roles in Gottfried von Einem's ''Der Prozess''. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Lisa Della Casa」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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