Ortrun Wenkel

Ortrun Wenkel
Wenkel in 1993
Born(1937-10-25)25 October 1937
Buttstädt, Gau Thuringia, Germany
Died14 December 2025(2025-12-14) (aged 88)
Hirschberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Education
OccupationOperatic contralto

Ortrun Wenkel-Rothe (25 October 1937[a] – 14 December 2025) was a German operatic contralto.[2] She notably portrayed the role of Erda in the Bayreuth Jahrhundertring (Centenary Ring) in 1976 and was awarded a Grammy Award as a principal soloist in 1983.

Life and career

Wenkel was born in Buttstädt, Gau Thuringia, on 25 October 1937. She started her studies at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar. Following her emigration from East Germany to West Germany, she continued at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts with Paul Lohmann (masterclass) and then with Elsa Cavelti.[3]

She began her career in 1964 as concert and oratorio soloist when she was still a student. Dedicated to Baroque music, she appeared at major international festivals including the English Bach Festival, Festival du Marais, Festival of Flanders, Holland Festival,[3] and for concerts at the Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Royal Festival Hall in London, the Tonhalle in Zürich and the Vienna Musikvereinssaal. In 1971, she made her stage debut at the municipal theatre of Heidelberg in the title role of Glucks Orfeo.[3] In 1975, she became a member of the Bavarian State Opera[3] where she caught the attention of Wolfgang Wagner who immediately engaged her as Erda in the 1976 Bayreuth Festival's Jahrhundertring, celebrating the centenary of both the festival and the first performance of the complete Ring cycle, conducted by Pierre Boulez and staged by Patrice Chéreau, recorded and filmed in 1979 and 1980.[3] For her performance of Erda in Das Rheingold and Siegfried and the First Norn in Götterdämmerung) in this production she was awarded in 1982 a Grammy as a "principal soloist".

Wenkel in Miami

Wenkel appeared at many important opera houses of the world including Deutsche Oper Berlin, Palais Garnier in Paris, La Scala in Milan, the Royal Opera House in London, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, as well as Rome, the opera houses of Stuttgart, Zurich, Geneva, Lisboa, Venice and Prague, among others, concert halls including the Berliner Philharmonie, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Accademia di Santa Cecilia in Rome, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and Carnegie Hall in New York. During the 1980s, she appeared repeatedly in Marcel Prawy's TV productions Gute Laune mit Musik and Ihre Melodie. Since her concert debut in 1964, Wenkel was continuously performing, and she worked with many of the most prominent conductors, e. g. Riccardo Chailly, Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, Marek Janowski, Erich Leinsdorf, Gerd Albrecht, Riccardo Muti, Václav Neumann, Seiji Ozawa, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Gabriel Chmura, Michael Hofstetter, Ulf Schirmer and Klaus Tennstedt. Her roles included Fricka and Waltraute in the Ring cycle at the Graz Opera, and Klytämnestra in Elektra by R. Strauss at the Budapest Spring Festival and at the Freiburg Opera, In the 2002/03 season she portrayed the title role in Aribert Reimann's Bernarda Albas Haus in the opera's Swiss premiere at the Bern Theatre, and in 2012 Filipjewna in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin) at the Staatstheater Saarbrücken. In contemporary music, she collaborated with composers Hans Werner Henze, Krzysztof Penderecki and Reimann. Henze composed for her his revision of Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder for alto and chamber orchestra, and she performed the premiere under his direction at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in 1977. In 1999 she portrayed Magda Schneider in the premiere of Tod und Teufel by Gerd Kühr and Peter Turrini during the Steirischer Herbst in Graz. Wenkel is also renowned for giving recitals around the world, accompanied by pianists including Geoffrey Parsons, Rudolf Jansen, Phillip Moll, Erik Werba, Wilhelm von Grunelius, Cord Garben [de], Helge Dorsch, Burkhard Schaeffer and Felix-Jany Renz.

Wenkel died in December 2025 after a short illness in Hirschberg-Leutershausen at the age of 88.[4]

Reviews

  • On 19 April 1971, The Daily Telegraph London wrote about Wenkel's concert at the English Bach Festival: "Each of the soloists sang with some command here but outstanding was the splendid young contralto Ortrun Wenkel, who produced the liveliest and most committed solo of the evening."[5]
  • In September 1981, Speight Jenkins wrote in Record World, New York, about the recording of Das Rheingold with Wenkel (Erda), Siegmund Nimsgern (Alberich), Theo Adam (Wotan), Peter Schreier (Loge), Lucia Popp (Woglinde), Yvonne Minton (Fricka) and the Staatskapelle Dresden conducted by Marek Janowski, recorded 1980 in Dresden: "Of the singers the best by far is Ortrun Wenkel, the Erda. She levels her competition on all the other sets. This is a great Erda, a true contralto Mother Earth who inspires terror and commands with authority."[6]
  • On 16 October 1984, Donal Henahan wrote in The New York Times about the performance of Glinka's Ivan Susanin in Carnegie Hall, with Wenkel (Vanya), Martti Talvela (Susanin) and Chris Merritt (Sobinin): "... Miss Wenkel, a spunky mezzo with a particularly solid lower register. Easily the most spirited and imaginative actor in the cast, she almost managed to make one take an interest in the intrepid Vanya, Susanin's adopted son."[7]
  • On 14 March 1986, Pierre Petit from Le Figaro wrote about the performance of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder with the Orchestre de Paris, conducted by Erich Leinsdorf. "It was Ortrun Wenkel who sang these five great and beautiful songs. A voice of remarkable harmony over a range of two octaves, of warm and dark colour, keeping the same virtues all over in addition to a quite natural sense of phrasing serving the line of the melody without ever damaging her luminous pronunciation."[8]
  • In May 1986, Bill Zakariasen wrote in the Daily News, New York, about Daphne at the Richard Strauss Festival at Carnegie Hall with Catherine Malfitano (Daphne) and Wenkel (Gaea): "Ortrun Wenkel's super-contralto voice was an ideal fit for the earth-goddess Gaea – probably the lowest female role in opera."[9]

Selected recordings

Notes

  1. ^ Some sources state 25 October 1942 as birth date.[1]

References

  1. ^ Ortrun Wenkel (Contralto), bach-cantatas.com
  2. ^ sources biographical data: death notice Mannheimer Morgen, 3.1.26 and death notice Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, 3.1.26; source full name Ortrun Wenkel-Rothe: Obituary Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, 8.1.26; all retrieved 10 January 2026.
  3. ^ a b c d e Ortrun Wenkel, Bayreuth Festival (in German)
  4. ^ Jörg-Peter Klotz: Die Opernwelt trauert um Ortrun Wenkel aus Hirschberg. In: mannheimer-morgen.de, 23. December 2025.
  5. ^ The Daily Telegraph, London, 29 April 1971
  6. ^ Record World, New York, September 1981
  7. ^ Henahan, Donal (16 October 1984). "Opera: Susanin by Glinka". The New York Times.
  8. ^ Le Figaro, Paris, 14 March 1986
  9. ^ Daily News, New York May 1986

Further reading

  • Saarländisches Staatstheater, programme booklet Nr. 111 (season 2011/2012)
  • Der Ring, Bayreuth 1976–1980. Kristall-Verlag, Berlin/ Hamburg 1980, ISBN 3-607-00020-4.
  • Karl-Josef Kutsch, Leo Riemens: Großes Sängerlexikon 3rd ed. K. G. Saur, Munich 1999.
  • Karl Strute, Theodor Doelken, Who is Who in Germany 1982–1983, Who's Who the International Red Series Verlag, 1983.
  • International Who's Who in Music, 2002 (18th ed.), Europa Publications, Taylor & Francis Group, 2002.
  • "Vendégünk volt: Ortrun Wenkel" (Csák P. Judit, profile and interview), in: Opera élet (opera magazine), Budapest, May/June 1999)
  • "Das Porträt: Ortrun Wenkel" (W. Bronnenmeyer), In: Opernwelt. September 1975, Friedrich Berlin Verlag, Berlin 1975
  • "Die Freude am Gesang nie verlieren. Ortrun Wenkel", In: Oper heute. July 1984, Henschelverlag Kunst und Gesellschaft, Berlin 1984.
  • "Das Interview: Ortrun Wenkel" (Kurt Osterwald), In: Orpheus. June 1986, Verlag Clauspeter Koscielny, Berlin 1986.
  • "Stark ruft das Lied", conversation with Ortrun Wenkel (Sieglinde Pfabigan), in: Der Neue Merker, Nr. 29, August/September 1992.
  • "Sempre aperto – per tutto: Ortrun Wenkel" (Gerhart Asche), in: Opernwelt. February 2006, Friedrich Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2006
  • Marcel Prawy, Peter Dusek, Christoph Wagner-Trenkwitz: Marcel Prawy erzählt aus seinem Leben. Heyne Verlag, 1997, ISBN 3-218-00624-4, pp. 271, 278, 279.
  • Marcel Prawy, Karin Werner-Jensen: Nun sei bedankt. Mein Richard-Wagner-Porträt. 1st ed. Goldmann Verlag, 1983.
  • Otto Schwarz: Marcel Prawy: Ein großes Leben neu erzählt. 1st ed. Amalthea Verlag, 2006, pp. 135, 139.
  • "Portrait in case of Ortrun Wenkel's 70th birthday" in: Opernwelt. September 2012, Friedrich Berlin Verlag, Berlin 2012, p. 88, Jubilare.
allikas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ortrun_Wenkel