The Stage

Hildegard Behrens

Published Tuesday 27 October 2009 at 11:50 by Michael Quinn

As one of the great actor-singers of her generation, Hildegard Behrens seared herself onto the imagination as a Brunnhilde without equal, while claiming ownership of another Wagnerian heroine, Isolde, as well as Richard Strauss’ Salome and Elektra, Beethoven’s Leonore and Marie in Berg’s 20th century masterpiece Wozzeck.

Despite a late start - she was 26 and newly graduated as a barrister when she began singing lessons - Behrens was a natural theatre animal, full of dark, bristling energy and pent-up emotion that would explode on stage with overwhelming precision and power. Her commanding physical presence matched a dramatic soprano voice that, although prone to faltering, filled her characters with bursting believability.

Her professional debut in Freiburg in 1971 as the Countess in Le Nozze di Figaro prompted an invitation to join the Deutsche Oper. Herbert von Karajan’s championing of her as Salome in Salzburg in 1976 thrust her into the limelight. That same year, she made her debut at the Met - with whom she would sing 171 performances - and, as Leonore in Fidelio, at Covent Garden.

A Wagnerian without equal, she added a notable Isolde and Senta to a repertoire that also effortlessly embraced Mozart, Puccini and Janacek.

Though her voice proved erratic in later years, Behrens was still a box-office draw. Born on February 9, 1937 at Varel in northern Germany, she was in Japan preparing for a performance and masterclass at the time of her death from a ruptured aortic aneurysm on August 18.

She was married for a time to the German director Seth Schneidman, with whom she had two children.