Johanna Meier
Encyclopedia
Johanna Meier is an American opera
tic soprano
, known as "one of the foremost Wagnerian sopranos of her era". She had an international career, including fourteen years at the Metropolitan Opera
and three summers singing the role of Isolde in Wagner's
Tristan und Isolde
for the Bayreuth Festival
--the Festival's first American Isolde.
, Meier was raised in Spearfish, South Dakota
and continues to contribute to the State, having founded the School of Opera and Vocal Arts as part of the Black Hills State University
Summer Institute of the Arts, for which she also serves as Artistic Director
. As her family was touring with the Luenen Passion Play
when she was born, she had her stage debut at five weeks and grew up playing various parts; she continued the family's tradition through 2008, staging the play with her husband each summer in Spearfish, with Meier playing the role of Mary.
Meier trained at the University of Miami
's Frost School of Music
and received the school's first Distinguished Alumnus Award. She also studied under John Brownlee
at the Manhattan School of Music
before beginning her professional career in 1969 at the New York City Opera
, where she sang Mozart roles, slowly adding in roles from Richard Strauss
's operas before finally taking on the Wagnerian roles for which she is best known. The City Opera recognized that she was talented both as a singer and as an actress and cast her in several leads.
Meier's debut at the Metropolitan Opera came earlier than planned: she had been scheduled to debut in December 1976, playing Marguerite in Faust
, but was sent onstage in April as a last-minute replacement for Montserrat Caballé
as Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos
. During her fourteen years at the Met, she played fifteen roles, including Chrysothemis
, Senta
, Leonore
, the Empress
, the Marschallin
, Elisabeth
, Ellen Orford
, Donna Anna
, Tosca
, Sieglinde
, Brünnhilde
and Isolde. Meier was seen in the title role of Vanessa (with Christopher Keene
conducting), when it was televised from the Spoleto Festival USA
, in 1978. She began her stint at Bayreuth in 1981 in the widely-praised production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
(q.v.); this production was eventually recorded on video. Her final professional performance, in 1994, was as Elektra
.
In 2003, she received an honorary doctorate from Black Hills State University. She has been married to Guido Della Vecchia since 1960.
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
, known as "one of the foremost Wagnerian sopranos of her era". She had an international career, including fourteen years at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
and three summers singing the role of Isolde in Wagner's
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
for the Bayreuth Festival
Bayreuth Festival
The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th century German composer Richard Wagner are presented...
--the Festival's first American Isolde.
Life and career
Born in ChicagoChicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, Meier was raised in Spearfish, South Dakota
Spearfish, South Dakota
Spearfish is a city in Lawrence County, South Dakota,United States. The population was 10,494 at the 2010 census.- History :Prior to the Black Hills Gold Rush of 1876, the area was used by Native Americans who would spear fish in the creek...
and continues to contribute to the State, having founded the School of Opera and Vocal Arts as part of the Black Hills State University
Black Hills State University
Black Hills State University, South Dakota's third largest comprehensive public university, offering both undergraduate and graduate programs. The campus is located in Spearfish, South Dakota. Close to 5,000 students attend classes at the Spearfish campus, at sites in Rapid City, Pierre, Yankton,...
Summer Institute of the Arts, for which she also serves as Artistic Director
Artistic director
An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre company, that handles the organization's artistic direction. He or she is generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the organization is generally a non-profit organization...
. As her family was touring with the Luenen Passion Play
Passion play
A Passion play is a dramatic presentation depicting the Passion of Jesus Christ: his trial, suffering and death. It is a traditional part of Lent in several Christian denominations, particularly in Catholic tradition....
when she was born, she had her stage debut at five weeks and grew up playing various parts; she continued the family's tradition through 2008, staging the play with her husband each summer in Spearfish, with Meier playing the role of Mary.
Meier trained at the University of Miami
University of Miami
The University of Miami is a private, non-sectarian university founded in 1925 with its main campus in Coral Gables, Florida, a medical campus in Miami city proper at Civic Center, and an oceanographic research facility on Virginia Key., the university currently enrolls 15,629 students in 12...
's Frost School of Music
Frost School of Music
The Phillip and Patricia Frost School of Music or Frost School of Music of the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida, known from 1926 to 2003 as University of Miami School of Music, is a music school in the United States....
and received the school's first Distinguished Alumnus Award. She also studied under John Brownlee
John Brownlee (baritone)
John Donald Mackenzie Brownlee was an Australian operatic baritone.-Biography:John Brownlee was born in Geelong, Victoria. As a boy, he became a junior naval cadet in the Royal Australian Navy, serving during World War I. Following service, he studied accounting...
at the Manhattan School of Music
Manhattan School of Music
The Manhattan School of Music is a major music conservatory located on the Upper West Side of New York City. The school offers degrees on the bachelors, masters, and doctoral levels in the areas of classical and jazz performance and composition...
before beginning her professional career in 1969 at the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
, where she sang Mozart roles, slowly adding in roles from Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's operas before finally taking on the Wagnerian roles for which she is best known. The City Opera recognized that she was talented both as a singer and as an actress and cast her in several leads.
Meier's debut at the Metropolitan Opera came earlier than planned: she had been scheduled to debut in December 1976, playing Marguerite in Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
, but was sent onstage in April as a last-minute replacement for Montserrat Caballé
Montserrat Caballé
Montserrat Caballé is a Spanish operatic soprano. Although she sang a wide variety of roles, she is best known as an exponent of the bel canto repertoire, notably the works of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Verdi....
as Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
. During her fourteen years at the Met, she played fifteen roles, including Chrysothemis
Elektra (opera)
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...
, Senta
The Flying Dutchman (opera)
Der fliegende Holländer is an opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner.Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write "The Flying Dutchman" following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839, but in his 1843...
, Leonore
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
, the Empress
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917...
, the Marschallin
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
, Elisabeth
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
, Ellen Orford
Peter Grimes
Peter Grimes is an opera by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto adapted by Montagu Slater from the Peter Grimes section of George Crabbe's poem The Borough...
, Donna Anna
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, Tosca
Tosca
Tosca is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. It premiered at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome on 14 January 1900...
, Sieglinde
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
, Brünnhilde
Der Ring des Nibelungen
Der Ring des Nibelungen is a cycle of four epic operas by the German composer Richard Wagner . The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied...
and Isolde. Meier was seen in the title role of Vanessa (with Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene
Christopher Keene was an American conductor.Born in Berkeley, California, Keene studied at the University of California, Berkeley. Associated with the Spoleto Festival from 1968 , he was co-founder of the Spoleto Festival USA, where he was Music Director from 1977 to 1980...
conducting), when it was televised from the Spoleto Festival USA
Spoleto Festival USA
Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the world's major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy...
, in 1978. She began her stint at Bayreuth in 1981 in the widely-praised production by Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle
Jean-Pierre Ponnelle was a noted French opera director.-Biography:Ponnelle was born in Paris. He studied philosophy, art, and history there and, in 1952, began his career in Germany as a theatre designer for Hans Werner Henze's opera Boulevard Solitude...
(q.v.); this production was eventually recorded on video. Her final professional performance, in 1994, was as Elektra
Elektra (opera)
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...
.
In 2003, she received an honorary doctorate from Black Hills State University. She has been married to Guido Della Vecchia since 1960.
Commercial videography
- Wagner: Tristan und Isolde (Kollo; Barenboim, Ponnelle, 1983) [live] Deutsche GrammophonDeutsche GrammophonDeutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...