Frida Leider (1888-1975)

Frida Leider as Isolde

Frida Leider at Bayreuth

1928

Die Walküre (Brünnhilde)
Siegfried (Brünnhilde)
Götterdämmerung (Brünnhilde)
Parsifal (Kundry)

1933

Die Walküre (Brünnhilde)
Siegfried (Brünnhilde)
Götterdämmerung (Brünnhilde)
Parsifal (Kundry)

1934

Die Walküre (Brünnhilde)
Siegfried (Brünnhilde)
Götterdämmerung (Brünnhilde)

1936

Die Walküre (Brünnhilde)
Siegfried (Brünnhilde)
Götterdämmerung (Brünnhilde)

1937

Die Walküre (Brünnhilde)
Siegfried (Brünnhilde)
Götterdämmerung (Brünnhilde)

1938

Tristan und Isolde (Isolde)
Die Walküre (Brünnhilde)
Siegfried (Brünnhilde)
Götterdämmerung (Brünnhilde)

Said about Frida Leider

"Ah, Leider, she is the winner," says Stemme. "She's got it all." Evans agrees: "There's never just one way of doing anything. But it's the vibrancy of her sound that marks Leider out. All those colours in the voice."

Leider's recordings – sadly only of excerpts from the opera – point a path to the heart of the role. In her autobiography, Leider explains with great clarity how she approached Isolde. "I always tried to sing in the Italian bel canto style, and above all, I endeavoured to incorporate this style into my Wagner interpretations. I put my enunciation under the microscope. I accentuated very sharply but tried to do this while sustaining my vocal line."
From an article in The Guardian

Selected Biographies

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One of the finest monuments in sound ever to have been raised to the everlasting glory of music. (Claude Debussy on Parsifal)

"The thing about Wagner is that there can be no true success in any production of his operas, only degrees of failure. There is so much in these bloody pieces, all you can do is try to live up to them." (Keith Warner, The Guardian)

"I have never come across an audience with so much hatred, so much anger, such a thirst for revenge. They take everything personally. It makes you a little bit scared, and it's really quite terrifying." (Lance Ryan on the audiences at Bayreuth)

"People sometimes complain that Wagner operas are too long, that they get stiff and sore about 10.30 because they have rushed in to hear one of his works straight from work and are not properly prepared for listening to his music. The audience, as much as the artists, must be prepared for a performance."
(Benjamin Britten to Alan Blyth, Gramophone)

"I was bowled over. It was the year after Wieland Wagner had died; to be able to see his productions was a total knock-out. These bare stagings, where everything was done with lighting. The light changed with the music, and the shadows and patterns seemed as archetypal as the music itself. Nobody had done that on the stage before. I thought it was extraordinary and wonderful."
(Patrick Carnegy to The Guardian)

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