Lucia Popp

Lucia Popp began her professional path as a coloratura soprano whose agile instrument later darkened just enough to carry her successfully into lyric parts and, still later, into the lighter roles of Strauss and Wagner. Viennese operetta suited her voice and temperament perfectly, and she ranked among the finest interpreters of Rosalinde and Hanna Glawari during her era. Audiences also treasured her as a recitalist and lieder singer whose engaging platform manner enhanced both concert appearances and operatic performances. Her sudden death in 1993—the same year that claimed Arleen Auger and Tatiana Troyanos—cut short a distinguished international career.

As a youngster she performed in neighborhood choirs yet felt her real passion lay in acting. After secondary school she enrolled at the Bratislava Academy to study drama, still unsure of her ultimate direction. During a production of Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, voice instructor Anna Hrusovska-Prosenkova overheard her singing and proposed lessons. Popp initially trained as a mezzo-soprano, but a newly emerging upper register prompted her to complete her studies as a soprano. In 1963 she made her operatic debut at the Bratislava Opera as the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte and appeared the same year at Vienna’s Theater an der Wien, an engagement that quickly brought her to the Vienna State Opera, where her first assignment was Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro. Although she relinquished her permanent position with the company in 1967, she maintained close ties throughout her career and received the title of Austrian Kammersängerin in 1979. Covent Garden first heard her in 1966 as Oscar in Un Ballo in Maschera; the Metropolitan Opera welcomed her the following year, again as the Queen of the Night.

By the 1970s she had shifted from coloratura parts to lyric roles, proving especially persuasive as Pamina and Susanna in Mozart’s operas. During the 1980s she set aside those characters along with her signature Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier and took on weightier assignments such as Eva in Die Meistersinger and the title role in Strauss’s Arabella, both introduced in 1983, with comparable acclaim. She died unexpectedly in 1993.

On the Acanta disc (43 326) she recorded arias drawn from her central Mozart and Czechoslovakian repertory as well as from operas she performed only occasionally. Her EMI collection of operetta arias (CDR 7243 5 69853 2 2) highlights the silvery timbre and personal charm that distinguished her stage work, while her vivid Susanna appears on the Solti “dream cast” recording of Le Nozze di Figaro issued by London (410 150-2).