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While American-born sopranos have been making waves since the days of Lillian Nordica in the early 1900s, West Hartford, CN, native Teresa Stich-Randall may have been the first American soprano whose popularity abroad outstripped her reputation at home. Stich-Randall studied voice at the Hartt School of Music, Columbia University, and finally New York University, where she made her debut in 1947 creating the role of Gertrude Stein in the premiere of Virgil Thomson's opera The Mother of Us All. In 1948 Stich-Randall also created the title role in Otto Luening's opera Evangeline. Stich-Randall's talents attracted the attention of maestro Arturo Toscanini, who cast her in a number of parts in the 1949-1950 season, fortunately so in the minor part of Nanetta in Toscanini's last performance of Verdi's opera Falstaff, leading to Stich-Randall's presence on one of the most celebrated recorded opera sets ever made.

In 1951 Stich-Randall made her European debut in Florence, Italy, and that same year took first prize in an international singing competition held in Lausanne. This established Stich-Randall's reputation in Europe, and although she would perform with the Chicago Lyric Opera, at the Metropolitan in New York, and on American concert tours as a soloist in the coming years, it was in Europe that most of her subsequent activity was centered. Stich-Randall was named an Austrian Kammersängerin in 1962 and was the first American accorded this particular honor; afterwards, she was contracted to the Vienna State Opera and sang there primarily until her retirement around 1980. Outside of much-heralded visits home to West Hartford in 1982 and 1983, Stich-Randall had been little heard from after that.

Although Teresa Stich-Randall is hardly a household name, she had many fans among those who collect vintage vocal recordings. In her concert career she frequently sang works by Handel and J.S. Bach. Stich-Randall's approach to Baroque music was signified by her light tone with no more than a subtle vibrato, clear enunciation, and an infallible sense of pitch. Stich-Randall was definitely ahead of the game in regard to latter-day period performance practice, and her best recordings generously bear this out, in particular her 1966 Vanguard recording of Pergolesi's Stabat Mater with alto Elisabeth Höngen.

Regarded as a sensational Queen of the Night beginning in the late '40s, soprano Wilma Lipp won acclaim for that role in several major European venues. Studio recordings of Die Zauberflöte followed, with Karajan in 1950 and Böhm in 1955. By the 1960s, however, much of the focus and steadiness earlier evident had departed from her voice and adventures into the lyric repertory were less successful. In Vienna, Lipp studied with two famous singers: dramatic soprano Anna Bahr-Mildenburg (who achieved legendary status under Mahler's regime at the Vienna Staatsoper) and bass-baritone Alfred Jerger (a powerful singer/actor whose vocal production was decidedly unorthodox). Lipp made her debut in her native city as Rosina; two years later, at the tender age of 20, she was invited to join the Staatsoper at a time when the company was struggling to recover from wartime conditions. Her Queen of the Night in Vienna in 1948 was deemed spectacular. She performed it under Klemperer at La Scala and with Furtwängler at Salzburg with equal success. Covent Garden heard her for the first time in 1951 when her Gilda was found physically and vocally attractive but lightweight (she was one of five sopranos sharing the role); her Queen of the Night was regarded as more accomplished. Her Violetta in 1955 was less successful, lacking sufficient vocal substance for the third and fourth acts. Lipp sang Konstanze under Swiss conductor Paul Sacher at the 1957 Glyndebourne Festival, with Ernst Haefliger as Tamino. Lipp's American stage debut took place at San Francisco in 1962 when she undertook four roles, only one of which was comfortably within her fach. Unfortunately, her Sophie to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's elegant Marschallin was wobbly in the higher reaches of the role. Alice in Falstaff (she had sung Nannetta in earlier years) proved only curious and both Nedda and Micaëla were unidiomatic interpretations that lacked the right vocal coloration. Among Lipp's recordings, the 1950 Karajan Die Zauberflöte captures her art and voice at their freshest. A live performance from Salzburg in 1951 with Furtwängler leading a similar cast is also memorable; by the time Lipp recorded the Queen with Böhm in 1955, her performance was somewhat less secure. Lipp was awarded the title Kammersängerin in Vienna and taught for some years at the Salzburg Mozarteum.

Thoroughly Viennese, bass-baritone Erich Kunz excelled in serious roles (although he sang rather few), comic parts and in operetta characterizations. An indispensable participant in recording producer Walter Legge's Champagne Operetta series in the early 1950s, Kunz, together with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, defined Viennese operetta style -- its lightness, grace, and charm. With a rich, masculine voice, he was a definitive Figaro, Leporello, and Papageno in the tradition of Mozart performance that sprang from the Vienna Opera immediately after WWII. An incomparable Beckmesser, his interpretation was preserved on two live recordings, and he left a number of delightful recordings of Viennese café and university songs.

Kunz studied in his native Vienna, primarily with Theodore Lierhammer at the Vienna Academy. His debut took place at Tropau in 1933 as Osmin (a part for deep bass) in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail. Following that, he sang with a number of smaller German theaters before being engaged by the Breslau Opera for three years. Kunz made his first acquaintance with England when he was offered an opportunity to understudy at the Glyndebourne Festival in 1936. He was soon thereafter assigned several smaller roles.

In 1941, Kunz became a part of the company at the Vienna Staatsoper where he remained throughout his career; he was given the title of Kammersänger in 1948. During the war years, he sang throughout Austria and Germany, primarily in Mozart and Wagner. He made his debut at the Salzburg Festival in 1942 as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte and in 1943 became the youngest artist ever to have appeared in a major role at the Bayreuth Festival when he sang Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger.

Once the hostilities ended, Kunz's career assumed a still more international flavor. Opera performances took him to Florence, Rome, Naples, Paris, Brussels, Budapest, and Buenos Aires. His role at the Salzburg Festival grew and he was a part of the Vienna Staatsoper troupe touring England and France in 1947. The following year brought his debut at the Edinburgh Festival.

A Metropolitan Opera debut waited until 1952, but Kunz's appearance as Leporello on November 26 brought a warm response from the audience and positive reviews from the critics. Both local and national writers commented upon his handsome voice and subtle comic skills. Many could recall only a few comparable artists in a role frequently immersed in slapstick routine. The Metropolitan Opera enjoyed his presence for just two years. In addition to Leporello, Kunz appeared as Mozart's Figaro, Beckmesser, and Faninal in Rosenkavalier. Chicago heard his treasurable Harlequin in Ariadne auf Naxos and Leporello, both in 1964 and, two seasons later, his wily, yet innocent Papageno in Die Zauberflöte.

While musical tastes had moved from the elegant Mozart style of post-war Vienna to an earthier, more robust Italianate approach by the 1960s, Kunz's inimitable stage persona lost nothing of its potency. Nor did his voice; he continued to sing well even in his sixties and continued to undertake small roles (unforgettable cameos, all) to the end of a long career. In addition to opera house appearances, Kunz graced the stage of the Vienna Volksoper from time to time, giving lessons to both audiences and fellow artists in operetta style and singing.

Among the recordings of lasting value Kunz made during his prime years are, besides Meistersinger (two live from Bayreuth), Le Nozze di Figaro, Die Zauberflöte and each and every one of his operetta discs on Angel Records/EMI.

Josef Greindl, with a voice mellower and less cutting than those of Gottlob Frick or Kurt Böhme, nonetheless became a dominant presence in the heaviest German bass roles during the 1950s and 1960s. A wide vibrato bothered some listeners who were sensitive to such matters, but Greindl was a savvy enough artist to subdue the effect in all but the most sustained passages and he was a canny presence. His Hagen exuded evil, while his Sarastro had a warmth and dignity that clarified the role as few others did. His occasional ventures into Italian opera largely took place in Germany and primarily at a time in which Italian opera was sung there in the vernacular. Greindl sang the leading bass roles in two essential Ring cycles preserved on disc, first under Furtwängler in 1953 and under Clemens Krauss at Bayreuth in 1954. Studies with bass Paul Bender, a former leading artist in Munich, and Wagnerian soprano Anna Bahr-Mildenburg prepared Greindl for his debut as Hunding in a 1936 Krefeld production. From 1938 to 1942, the young bass was engaged at Düsseldorf. In 1942, Greindl began a long association with Berlin, first at the Staatsoper (until 1949) and thereafter at the Berlin's Städtische Oper. His debut at the Bayreuth Festival came as Pogner in 1943, but his prominent years there began in earnest in 1951. Concentrating his career in Europe, Greindl spent only one season at the Metropolitan Opera: in 1952, Heinrich and Pogner sufficed for his New York opera appearances. Later, however, he sang in Chicago, where his Daland and Alvise (in Italian, of course) were heard at the Lyric Opera in 1959. San Francisco heard him only in 1967 when his King Marke was described as "wobbly," although his Baron Ochs opposite Régine Crespin's Marschallin was found more satisfactory. In Berlin, the bass was much admired for his Boris Godunov. In the latter years of his Bayreuth affiliation, he abandoned Pogner for Hans Sachs, managing the tiring tessitura and enormous length of the role with skill and creating a positive portrait of the master cobbler. In 1973, Greindl was appointed a professor of singing at Vienna's Hochschule für Musik.

Hans Hotter was one of the 20th century's greatest singing actors. Indeed, he was often compared to Russian bass-baritone Feodor Chaliapin in histrionic ability as well as vocal endowment. Like the Russian, he was tall, able to bring the authority of his six feet four inch frame to the Wagnerian roles in which he came to specialize. After the retirement of Friedrich Schorr in 1943, Hotter came to be considered the supreme Wotan in Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung tetrology.

Hotter trained as an organist and choirmaster, but found his vocal gifts pushing him in the direction of a singing career. He made his debut as the Speaker in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the age of 20 in the small theater at Opava. Following contracts in Prague, Breslau, and Hamburg, he was invited to Munich in 1938 and remained associated with that company for much of his subsequent career. In Munich, he came in close contact with composer Richard Strauss who, much impressed with Hotter's singing and acting, composed three roles specifically for him, beginning with the Commandant in Friedenstag (Freedom's Day), which had its premiere in Munich in 1938. Following that, Strauss wrote for Hotter the part of Jupiter in Die Liebe der Danae (The Love of Danae). Hotter sang the dress rehearsal for a much-delayed production at Salzburg just before all theaters were closed in 1944. In Capriccio, Strauss' final opera, Hotter appeared as Olivier at the 1942 premiere.

With the cessation of World War II hostilities, Hotter's career took him abroad, first to London in 1947 where, among other roles, he performed Wotan in stagings given in English; he remained a revered artist in England for as long as his long career continued. In 1950, he made an impressive debut at New York's Metropolitan Opera as the protagonist in Wagner's Fliegende Holländer. His immense voice and baleful appearance made a profound effect upon both critics and audiences as yet more comparisons to Chaliapin were invoked. After only a few seasons, however, his Met career came to a halt when general manager Rudolf Bing sought to steer him in the direction of secondary parts. The rest of the opera world was only too happy to hear him perform the great Wagnerian and Strauss roles in which he was incomparable and he was a welcome guest in San Francisco and Chicago.

Vienna was one of several European venues to benefit from his appearances in roles he seldom undertook in the United States. Roles such as Don Basilio in Il barbiere di Siviglia and King Phillip in Verdi's Don Carlo were two especially memorable interpretations.

Throughout the 1950s and on through the last of his public appearances in 1972, Hotter's voice was increasingly prone to unsteadiness at full volume. Acute hay fever bedeviled him during summer engagements such as those at the Bayreuth Festival. Still, his performances remained riveting even in vocal decline and Georg Solti chose him for his Ring recording even after he was significantly past his prime.

While better known as an operatic personality, Hotter was a magnificent interpreter of German lieder (he in fact enjoyed performing this music more than opera) and made many recordings of the repertory over a three-decade span. His interpretive genius and ability to scale back his huge voice suited this kind of singing superbly, and the reissue on CD of his best song recordings has won the enthusiasm of a new generation of followers.

The WDR Rundfunkchor Köln, or West Germany Radio Choir of Cologne, is the house choir of the Westdeutsche Rundfunk or West German Radio network. The choir specializes in contemporary music and has a national and international reputation while still playing a strong role in the musical life of Germany's North Rhine-Westphalia region.

The current WDR Rundfunkchor Köln dates to 1947, when it was founded as the Kölner Rundfunkchor and began rehearsals at St. Agnes Church, one of the few intact rehearsal spaces in Cologne. Its predecessor was the Kammerchor des Kölner Senders, or Cologne Broadcasting Chamber Choir, which was founded in 1927 but dissolved in 1940. The Kölner Rundfunkchor was at first associated with the Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (Northwest German Radio) but took its present name when the WDR was formed in 1956. The choir had already begun to specialize in contemporary music, a fortunate choice since so many progressive German works had been banned by the Nazi regime. In 1954, the group performed in the premiere of Arnold Schoenberg's unfinished opera Moses und Aron. That was among the first of more than 150 premieres of new works by the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln, including such major compositions as Karlheinz Stockhausen's Momente (conducted by the composer), Iannis Xenakis' Nuits, and Krzysztof Penderecki's St. Luke Passion. The choir sings a wide variety of repertory, however, and often performs standard works in churches around Cologne. The choir consists of 43 to 48 members. Conductors of the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln have included Bernhard Zimmermann, Herbert Schernus, Helmuth Froschauer, Anton Marik, Rupert Huber, and since 2014, Stefan Parkman, the group's first non-German director.

The WDR Rundfunkchor Köln is especially noted for its large catalog of recordings, appearing on CPO, Delta Classics, Capriccio, and other internationally distributed labels. The group's 2012 recording of György Ligeti's Requiem won Germany's coveted ECHO Klassik award. In 2017, the choir was heard on a recording of the Emmerich Kálmán operetta Die Bajadere. Several times the WDR Rundfunkchor Köln has performed at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, northern Germany's leading concert hall, and the group appeared there in 2020 in a performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, as part of the hall's celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven's birth. ~ James Manheim

The WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, or West German Radio Symphony Orchestra of Cologne, is one of Germany's leading symphony orchestras. The group plays the music of various periods but has specialized in contemporary music, a specialty made possible by the fact that the WDR network also maintains another orchestra, the WDR Rundfunkorchester Köln, that performs lighter music and pops material.

The broadcast of orchestral music on the radio in Cologne dates back almost to the foundation of the Richessender Köln radio station in 1927. After World War II, Allied administrators announced the breakup of the central broadcasting of the Nazi era in favor of a system of regional broadcasters that persists today. The Kölner Rundfunk-Sinfonie-Orchester was established to serve the new Nordwestdeutscher Rundfunk (Northwest German Radio), in 1947; the name was changed to WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln in the 1990s. In the beginning, the group hosted only guest conductors, but since 1964, when Christoph von Dohnányi was named principal conductor, the orchestra has reliably spawned international conducting careers. Recent principal conductors have included Hans Vonk (1991-1997), Semyon Bychkov (1997-2010), Jukka-Pekka Saraste (2010-2019), and, since 2019, Cristian Macelaru. Guest conductors have included international greats: Herbert von Karajan, Karl Böhm, and Zubin Mehta, among others. The orchestra's contemporary music specialty dates back many years and has included premieres of works by Luciano Berio, Hans Werner Henze, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. This tendency, along with the WDR's maintenance of its own electronic music studio directed for many years by Stockhausen, helped to establish Cologne as a center for contemporary music. The orchestra performs at the WDR Funkhaus Wallrafplatz and the Kölner Philharmonie.

The WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln has recorded for both German and international labels. In 1989, under frequent guest conductor Günter Wand, the orchestra released recordings of Schubert's Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944 ("The Great"), and Bruckner's Symphony No. 5 on RCA Red Seal. The orchestra has also recorded for Wergo, Audite, CPO, and many others. Although quite prolific, with more than 80 recordings to its credit as of the early 2020s, the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln has not been strongly associated with any single imprint. In 2020, the group released its first two albums on Sony Classical, Beethoven's World, and a release devoted to the violin concertos of Franz Joseph Clement, with violinist Mirijam Contzen and conductor Reinhard Goebel. ~ James Manheim

Joseph Keilberth was a German conductor active during the mid-twentieth century. His talents developed early: he pursued a general education and musical training in Karlsruhe, and at the age of seventeen joined the Karlsruhe State Theater as a répétiteur (vocal coach--a common starting place for European conductors). He remained with the theater and ten years later he was appointed general music director.

He remained there until 1940, when he was appointed chief conductor of the German Philharmonic Orchestra of Prague. He became chief conductor of the Dresden State Opera in 1945. With a minimum of disruption for deNazification (official Allied certification that he was not implicated in Nazi crimes) he remained in that position until 1950.

In 1949 he became chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, which was in fact a reunion: After the War, the German population of the Sudetenland (the German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia), which had been the excuse for Hitler's occupation of the country, were returned to Germany, and with them went the German Philharmonic of Prague, Keilberth's old orchestra, which settled in Bamberg. Causing unwary biographers some confusion, he also became the chief conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic in 1950.

He frequently appeared as a guest conductor elsewhere in Germany, notably with the Berlin Philharmonic and, beginning in 1952, the Bayreuth Festival, and appeared regularly at the Salzburg and Lucerne festivals. In 1952 he also led his first performance in the Edinburgh Festival with the Hamburg State Opera.

He was a favored conductor for the Ring and other operas through 1956. In 1959 he succeeded Ferenc Fricay at the helm of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. There, history repeated itself. Keilberth died after collapsing during a performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, just as Felix Mottl--conductor at the same theater--had done in 1911.

Keilberth was very strong in Mozart and in the Wagnerian repertory, and in later German classics such as Pfitzner, Bruckner, Richard Strauss, Max Reger, and Paul Hindemith. His classic recordings included Hindemith's opera Cardillac.