Born 1911, Vienna, Austria
Died 1995, Vienna, Austria
If you have never heard this singer, prepare to be impressed! There can be no better introduction to her commanding voice than this live performance of “In questa reggia” from Puccini’s Turandot.
This “hoch-dramatisch” soprano (aka “Wagnerian”) is said to have had the most enormous voice of them all, and when you’re talking about company that includes Kirsten Flagstad, Astrid Varnay, Martha Mödl, and Birgit Nilsson, that’s saying something! But she wasn’t just loud. She could also float a pianissimo, sing lyric passages, and caress with beautiful tone.
Shortly before completing her training, Grob-Prandl signed a contract with the Vienna Volksoper and made her debut as Santuzza in Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana in 1939. In January 1944, she joined the Vienna Staatsoper, where she stayed for the next 28 years. Her debut was as Elsa in Wagner’s Lohengrin, although she later took on the role of Ortrud as well. She believed that Ortrud should be sung by a dramatic soprano, not a mezzo-soprano, because of the high tessitura, as you can hear in this recording of “Entweihte Götter.”
Her first Brünnhilde in Wagner’s Die Walküre was sung under Clemens Krauss in 1949. While she was greatly in demand for all of those difficult-to-cast Wagnerian roles, she never sang at Bayreuth due to conflicting engagement commitments. In North America, she sang only in San Francisco.
Listen to Grob-Prandl in one of her most famous roles, that of Elektra in Richard Strauss’ opera. If anyone’s voice could cut through Strauss’ heavy writing for 110 orchestral musicians, it would be that of Gertrude Grob-Prandl.