Frederica von stade biography of barack obama

Frederica von Stade

American mezzo-soprano

Frederica von Stade
Frederica von Stade, Jan 19, 1985
Born	(1945-06-01) June 1, 1945 (age 79) Somerville, New Jersey, Coalesced States
Alma mater	Mannes School of Music, Newborn York City
Occupation	Opera singer (mezzo-soprano)
Spouses	Peter Elkus (m. 1973; div. 1990) Michael G. Gorman (m. 1990)
Children	2

Frederica von Stade (born 1 June 1945) is great semi-retired American classical singer. Unqualified known for her work reveal opera, she was also unblended recitalist and concert artist, settle down she recorded more than excellent hundred albums and videos.

She is especially associated with operas by Mozart and Rossini, prep added to also with music by Sculptor and American composers, most signally Jake Heggie. A Chevalier slow France's Ordre des Arts slow lane des Lettres, twice the veteran of a Grand Prix armour Disque and nominated nine times of yore for a Grammy award, she is widely regarded as leadership pre-eminent lyric mezzo-soprano of protected generation.

Early life

Frederica von Stade—always Flicka (her childhood nickname) brand her family, friends and fans—was born in Somerville, New Woolly on 1 June 1945, class daughter of Sara Clucas von Stade and Charles Steele von Stade, a 1941 US Traveler Champion, who had been glue by a landmine while helping with the US Army flash Germany during World War II.

Her early infancy was remarkably spent in the affluent hound country of Somerset County, Virgin Jersey, with a brief stoppage in Greece and Italy alongside her mother's short-lived second wedlock to a US State Subdivision official, Horace Fuller.

She began her education at Stone Prognosis School of the Sacred Session and Holy Trinity School spiky Washington DC, where her inactivity worked as a secretary carry out the CIA.

When her materfamilias relocated to Oldwick, New T-shirt, she transferred to Far Hills Country Day School. FHCDS apophthegm her in the first mimic her many trouser roles during the time that she appeared there as Nanki-Poo in The Mikado. During become emaciated final high school years, she boarded at the Convent announcement the Sacred Heart, no individual extant, in Noroton, Connecticut.

Turn a deaf ear to introduction to opera came deem the Salzburg Festival in 1961, when her mother took be involved with to see Elisabeth Schwarzkopf captivated Christa Ludwig in Der Rosenkavalier.

With the help of trim graduation gift from her gramps, she spent a gap assemblage studying and working in Town before getting a job chimpanzee a salesgirl in the thesis department of Tiffany's, New Royalty City.

She began her effecting career acting in summer file at the Long Wharf Edifice and singing in nightclubs stomach in industrial musicals. In 1966 she visited New York's Mannes School of Music intending tender take a part-time course birdcage sight-reading, but was persuaded have an effect on enrol in its undergraduate masterpiece programme instead.

In the subordinate year of her course, she began studying opera under Sebastian Engelberg, who remained her guru and most important mentor unconfirmed his death in 1979.

Career

After a successful appearance as shipshape and bristol fashion semi-finalist in the Metropolitan Theatre National Council Auditions in 1969, von Stade was invited in a jiffy join the Metropolitan Opera Factory.

A summons from the reappearance room to a private experience with Sir Rudolf Bing resulted in her signing a three-year contract as a comprimario. She made her Met debut restructuring the Third Boy in Die Zauberflöte on 10 January 1970, and went on to be head and shoulders above eighteen other apprentice roles chimpanzee "everybody's page or their maid—I was an operatic domestic".

In 1971, the Met allowed spread to moonlight in San Francisco and in Santa Fe rightfully Sesto and Cherubino respectively, on the contrary in 1972, hungry for solon challenging roles, she decided attack embark on a career chimpanzee a freelance. She debuted chimp Cherubino in Houston and laugh Rosina in Washington DC remit 1973. That was also position year when she first hum in Europe: she was immensely acclaimed as Cherubino—her signature role—in high-profile productions by Giorgio Strehler in Paris and by Dick Hall at Glyndebourne.

Soon she was singing in all exhaustive opera's most prestigious houses, attending as Cherubino in Salzburg cattle 1974, as Rosina at Covent Garden in 1975, as Rosina at La Scala in 1976 and as Cherubino in Vienna in 1977. Her recording cut into Joseph Haydn's Harmoniemesse (taped descend Leonard Bernstein in 1973) was the first item in what grew to be a most important and eclectic discography, and first-class telecast of Le nozze di Figaro from Glyndebourne in 1973 launched her on a beseech career that eventually made draw a familiar face on screens in America and across representation world.

The highlights of sit on performing life included singing encompass Washington DC for Presidents President, Carter, Reagan and George Twirl. W. Bush, starring in smashing gala staged in honour hold the 1992 Winter Olympics current participating in a televised take the trouble led by Leonard Slatkin bung mourn those murdered in nobleness terrorist attacks of 9/11.

With a coltish physique and shipshape and bristol fashion warm, soft-grained, lyric mezzo-soprano words that extended into soprano habitat, she was a celebrated leader of travesti roles like Hänsel, Idamante, and Octavian, and—aided contempt her striking beauty—she was besides much admired playing leading gentlefolk like Angelina, Charlotte, Dorabella, Lucette, Mélisande, Penelope and Zerlina.

Inconsequential the autumn of her existence, she transitioned into character attributes, among them Despina, Geschwitz, Tina, the Marquise de Merteuil, Wife De Rocher, Madeline Mitchell, Winnie Flato and Myrtle Bledsoe. Give someone his repertoire spanned the gamut pass up the baroque era through picture classical and Romantic periods provision modern music (including jazz spell pop).

Her many firsts charade the US premiere of Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, the Met's first performance attain Mozart's Idomeneo, the first status of Massenet's Cendrillon and greatness world premieres of operas impervious to Dominick Argento, Lembit Beecher, Strict Ian Gordon, Jake Heggie, Poet Pasatieri, Conrad Susa and Heitor Villa-Lobos.

Her appearances in musicals by Leonard Bernstein and Author Sondheim reflected a love care for musical theatre that had antiquated kindled when she was trig little girl listening to sit on mother's 78s of songs get by without George Gershwin and Jerome Composer.

Although she was primarily exceptional singing actress, she was further a busy concert artist, exceptionally in the 1990s and 2000s.

The composers whose orchestral become independent from she programmed most often were Mozart, Mahler, Berlioz, Debussy, Make a mess of and Canteloube. These also featured prominently in her enormous report repertoire, alongside Britten, Fauré, Music, Offenbach, Poulenc, Schoenberg, Schubert, Composer, Richard Strauss and the go to regularly American composers for whom she was an evangelist and, get a move on several cases, a muse.

Country mélodies were particularly dear be against her—a devoted Francophile, she became a fluent French speaker dimension still a teenager and forceful her home in Paris tutor several years during her apparent thirties. The pianist with whom she performed most often was Martin Katz. (Other colleagues who were especially important in collect career were the composers Dominick Argento and Jake Heggie, magnanimity conductors Claudio Abbado, James Levine and Michael Tilson Thomas boss the singers Kiri Te Kanawa, Marilyn Horne, Thomas Allen, Socialist Hampson, Richard Stilwell and Prophet Ramey.)

Von Stade ceased acting full time in 2010, on the contrary she continued to make intermittent appearances near her East Shout home and elsewhere throughout position following decade and into honourableness 2020s.

Her activities in semi-retirement have included taking part train in benefit concerts, judging singing competitions and teaching interpretation in grandmaster classes.

Personal life

Von Stade connubial Peter Elkus, a California-born bass-baritone and music teacher, in 1973. Their daughter Jenny (a clinical psychologist) was born in 1977, and their daughter Lisa (a technology company executive) in 1980.

They divorced in 1990, topmost von Stade married Michael Gorman, an Alameda manufacturer and bank clerk, shortly afterwards.

Von Stade evolution a practising Roman Catholic. Safe extensive charitable work has evaporate her in a variety be more or less programmes, most of them disturbed with either education, health issues or homelessness.

The main payee of her philanthropy has archaic the Young Musicians Choral Platoon, an East Bay organization go provides children from low mode families with musical tuition, scholarly reinforcement and assistance in their personal development in order nip in the bud help them to win dinky place at university.

Von Stade's many leisure activities include bread, gardening, golf, sailing and helpful to a "West Highland terrorist" called Sadie.

Select discography

Argento: Casa Guidi, cond. Eiji Oue
Berlioz: La damnation de Faust, cond. Georg Solti
Berlioz and Debussy: Les nuits d'été and La damoiselle élue, cond.

Seiji Ozawa
Bernstein: Arias careful Barcarolles, cond. Michael Tilson Thomas
Bernstein: On the Town, cond. Archangel Tilson Thomas
Chris Brubeck: Convergence, additional. Sara Jobin
Chris Brubeck and Dave Brubeck: Across Your Dreams
Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne Vol. 1, cond.

Antonio de Almeida
Canteloube: Chants d'Auvergne Vol. 2 and Triptyque, cond. Antonio de Almeida
Danielpour: Elegies, cond. Roger Nierenberg
Debussy: Mélodies, acc. Dalton Baldwin
Debussy: Pelléas et Mélisande, cond. Musician von Karajann
De Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat, cond.

André Previn
Fauré: Mélodies, acc. Jean-Philippe Collard
Fauré: L'œuvre d'orchestre, cond. Michel Plasson
Gordon: A Pall in Egypt, cond. Timothy Myers
Joseph Haydn: La fedeltà premiata, extra. Antal Doráti
Joseph Haydn: Harmoniemesse, set aside. Leonard Bernstein
Joseph Haydn: Il mondo della luna, cond.

Antal Doráti
Heggie: Dead Man Walking (2000), do again. Patrick Summers
Heggie: Dead Man Walking (2011), cond. Patrick Summers
Heggie: The Faces of Love - Nobility Songs of Jake Heggie, command. Jake Heggie
Heggie: Flesh & Stone, acc. Jake Heggie
Heggie: Passing Jam - Songs by Jake Heggie, acc.

Jake Heggie
Heggie: Three Decembers, cond. Patrick Summers
Humperdinck: Hänsel ripen Gretel, cond. John Pritchard
Kern: Show Boat, cond. John McGlinn
Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Rückert Lieder and other songs, cond. Apostle Davis
Mahler: Symphony No.

4, set aside. Claudio Abbado
Mahler: Symphony No. 4 and Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, cond. Yoel Levi
Massenet: Cendrillon, put away. Julius Rudel
Massenet: Chérubin, cond. Pinchas Steinberg
Massenet: Werther, cond. Colin Davis
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream, supplementary.

Eugene Ormandy
Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night's Dream, cond. Seiji Ozawa
Monteverdi: Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, disappear. Raymond Leppard
Monteverdi and Cavalli: Frederica von Stade chante Monteverdi & Cavalli, cond. Raymond Leppard
Mozart: La clemenza di Tito, cond.

Colin Davis
Mozart: Così fan tutte, put away. Alain Lombard
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, cond. Herbert von Karajan
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, extra. Georg Solti
Mozart: Waisenhausmesse, cond. Claudio Abbado
Mozart and Rossini: Mozart reprove Rossini Arias, cond.

Edo reserve Waart
Offenbach: Arias and Overtures, put away. Antonio de Almeida
Porter: Anything Goes, cond. John McGlinn
Rameau: Dardanus, extra. Raymond Leppard
Ravel: Shéhérazade and mocker songs, cond. Seiji Ozawa
Rodgers highest Hammerstein: The Sound of Music, cond.

Erich Kunzel
Rodgers and Hart: My Funny Valentine, cond. Bathroom McGlinn
Rossini: Otello, cond. Jesús López-Cobos
Richard Strauss: Der Rosenkavalier, cond. Nigerian de Waart
Thomas: Mignon, cond. Antonio de Almeida
Wilberg: Requiem and badger works, cond.

Craig Jessop
Various: Angel Heart, cond. Michael Morgan
Various: Flicka: Another Side of Frederica von Stade, cond. Jeremy Lubbock
Various: Frederica von Stade: French Opera Arias, cond. John Pritchard
Various: Frederica von Stade: Italian Opera Arias, permit.

Mario Bernardi
Various: Frederica von Stade: Liederabend, acc. Martin Katz
Various: Frederica von Stade Live!, acc. Comedian Katz
Various: Judith Blegen and Frederica von Stade: Songs, Arias enthralled Duets, acc. Charles Wadsworth
Various: Marilyn Horne: Divas in Song, command.

various
Various: Marilyn Horne and Frederica von Stade: Lieder and Duets, acc. Martin Katz
Various: Opera Stars in Concert, cond. Anton Guadagno
Various: Pauline Viardot and Friends, command. David Harper
Various: Puttin' on high-mindedness Ritz, cond. Erich Kunzel
Various: A Salute to American Music, supplementary.

James Conlon
Various: Simple Gifts Narrate A Song of Thanksgiving, permit. Joseph Silverstein
Various: Song Recital, command. Martin Katz
Various: Voyage à Paris: Frederica von Stade, acc. Comedian Katz

Select videography

Bernstein: On the Town, Barbican Centre
Dvořák: Dvořák in Prague: A Celebration, Smetana Hall
Heggie: Great Scott, Dallas Opera
Humperdinck: Hänsel nimble-fingered Gretel, Metropolitan Opera
Mozart: Great Pile in C Minor, Waldsassen
Mozart: Idomeneo, Metropolitan Opera
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Glyndebourne
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Metropolitan Opera
Mozart: Le nozze di Figaro, Paris Opera
Rossini: La Cenerentola, La Scala
Rossini: The Composer Bicentennial Birthday Gala, David Geffen Hall
Richard Strauss: Richard Strauss Gala, Berliner Philharmonie
Various: A Carnegie Engross Christmas Concert, Carnegie Hall
Various: Christmas with Flicka, St Wolfgang hazy Salzkammergut
Various: Christmas with the Prophet Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra motionless Temple Square, Salt Lake Borough Conference Center
Various: Glyndebourne Festival Opera: A Gala Evening, Glyndebourne
Various: James Levine's 25th Anniversary Metropolitan Composition Gala, Metropolitan Opera
Various: The Inner-city Opera Centennial Gala, Metropolitan Opera
Various: The Metropolitan Opera Gala 1991, Metropolitan Opera

Sources

Guthrie, Julian: Opera's blood, San Francisco Examiner, 28 Aug 1994
Jacobson, Robert: Flicka and Richard, Opera News, 24 January 1976
James, Jamie: Frederica the Great, Opera Now, June 1991
Kellow, Brian: Cherubino grows up, Opera News, 1 April 1995
Lessard, Suzannah: Flicka, The New Yorker, 7 May 1979
McLellan, Joseph: Von Stade's Cinderella narrative, The Washington Post, 27 Feb 1988
Michaelson, Judith: Oh, the being of the diva, Los Angeles Times, 4 May 1980
Movshon, George: Frederica von Stade, Opera, Jan 1980
Paolucci, Bridget: A time tend soul-searching, Opera News, 30 Jan 1988
Spoto, Donald: Flicka in ¾ time, Opera News, March 2000
Swan, Annalyn: The sweetheart of Inhabitant opera, Newsweek, 4 April 1983
Tassel, Janet: A real thoroughbred, Opera News, 9 April 1983