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One of the most respected Wagnerian sopranos of the mid-twentieth century, Astrid Varnay was born in Stockholm, Sweden, the child of two celebrated Hungarian singers. After spending her infancy in Norway where her father had been engaged as a stage director in Kristiania, she moved with her parents to Buenos Aires and the Teatro Colón; finally, the family traveled on to the United States. After her father died tragically shortly before his 35th birthday, Varnay's mother turned to teaching in order to make ends meet, and Violet (as she was known then) eventually became her most accomplished student.

Astrid Varnay made a surprise Metropolitan Opera debut as Sieglinde on December 6, 1941, when the great Lotte Lehmann took ill and no other substitute was available. Varnay was already under contract for performances in the lighter Wagnerian soprano repertory beginning the following month, but her success in Die Walküre, broadcast nationwide, served notice that hers was a voice destined for larger roles. Just six days later, another indisposition put her on stage as Brünnhilde, an even greater challenge.

With careful supervision from Met general manager Edward Johnson, Varnay's appearances were rationed to prevent her from becoming a vocal casualty. The rigorous training she had received from her mother assured that a technique was in place to serve her well in the heaviest repertory. Beyond strong and confident singing was a histrionic aptitude that marked her as an exceptional actress. With a trim and agile figure, she moved with an ease and sense of purpose that set her apart from her contemporaries.

With the end of WWII, Varnay traveled to other venues. Her Isolde in London in 1948 prompted critic Ernest Newman to write that hers was one of the best sung and acted interpretations he had encountered in his long memory. When Kirsten Flagstad declined to sing at the Bayreuth Festival about to reopen in 1951, she suggested Varnay instead; the grandsons of Richard Wagner engaged her unseen and unheard. Her stunning performances in the minimalist productions of Wieland Wagner set new standards in opera performance, prompting the director to say, "Why do I need a tree on the stage when I have Astrid Varnay?"

Varnay was to be a mainstay at Bayreuth for 17 seasons. Although she made few studio recordings, live performances reveal a huge instrument of enormous depth (putting many a contralto to shame) with a top register of lacerating thrust and power. Her legendary Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde, recorded under conductor Hans Knappertsbusch in 1951 but not issued due to artist contract obstacles, was finally released to thunderous acclaim in 1999. Varnay's stature as sovereign singer and actress was confirmed in every measure of the exhausting role.

During the early 1950s, Varnay became increasingly aware of Met general manager Rudolf Bing's indifference to Wagner and turned her attention to other theatres in Europe: Maggio Musicale in Florence, Paris, La Scala, Salzburg (where she was an overwhelming Elektra) and Munich.

After three decades of singing the dramatic soprano repertory, Varnay gradually entered the realm of parts customarily sung by mezzo-sopranos. As she entered her mid-sixties, she then moved into cameo roles, brief appearances imbued with all the care and perception brought to her heroic repertory of earlier times.

Varnay's autobiography, written with Donald Arthur, was published in November 2000 under the title 55 Years in Five Acts: My Life in Opera. Her intelligence, perception, good humor, and generosity to fellow artists attest to why she was regarded as the best of colleagues.

The most important singer of the German Heldentenor repertory in the 1950s and 1960s, Wolfgang Windgassen employed his not-quite-heroic instrument, believable physique, and considerable musical intelligence to forge memorable performances on-stage and in the recording studio. Although his voice lacked the sensuous appeal of Melchior's or Völker's, it was never unattractive and never employed to obvious effect. Indeed, it conveyed a youthfulness that suited the young Siegfried especially well. Born to German parents, both of them singers, in French Savoy, Windgassen began his vocal studies with his father Fritz. He later continued his training with Alfons Fischer and Maria Raznow at the Stuttgart Conservatory. The tenor made his debut as Alvaro in La forza del destino at Pforzheim in 1941. In 1945, he joined the Württembergisches Staatstheater in Stuttgart, steadily moving from lyric roles to more heroic parts; he remained a singer there until 1972. Upon making his debut in the first postwar season at Bayreuth in 1951, he came to international attention. His Parsifal, growing from uncomprehending innocence to maturity and service, was a moving portrayal and was recorded live by Decca Records. Windgassen became indispensable at the Bayreuth Festival, excelling as Lohengrin, the two Siegfrieds, Tannhäuser, and Tristan. There, he earned the respect and devotion of the three leading dramatic sopranos of the age: Martha Mödl, Astrid Varnay, and Birgit Nilsson. Elsewhere, Windgassen made positive impressions at La Scala (where he debuted as Florestan in 1952), Paris (Parsifal in 1954), and Covent Garden, where he appeared as Tristan in 1954. Although regarded by English critics as somewhat light of voice for Wagner's heaviest tenor roles, his lyric expression and dramatic aptness were wholly admired. The Metropolitan Opera briefly heard him as Siegmund beginning in January 1957 (a role rather low for him) and as Siegfried. Windgassen did not return to America until 1970, when he sang Tristan to the Isolde of Nilsson at San Francisco. Beginning that same year, he turned to stage direction. Among Windgassen's finest recordings are his Bayreuth Parsifal, captured with a superb cast under Knappertsbusch's direction, his 1954 Bayreuth Lohengrin under Jochum, his Siegfrieds under both Böhm at Bayreuth and in the studio with Solti, and his Bayreuth Tristan with Böhm conducting and Nilsson as his Isolde.

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.

Franz Konwitschny was born to a family consisting of several members who were professional musicians. He studied at Brno's German Musical Society and later at Leipzig Conservatory. While still a student, he was exposed to great conducting as a member of the viola section of the famous Gewandhausorchester Leipzig when he played under the direction of Wilhelm Furtwängler. In 1925, he moved to Vienna with the Fitzner Quartet and began teaching at the Vienna Volkskonservatorium. Within two years, he had decided to become a conductor. In 1927, he joined the Stuttgart Opera, first as an assistant conductor then winning promotion to chief conductor in 1930. Engagements at Freiburg, Frankfort, and Hanover occupied him until 1949 when he was awarded the helm of the venerable Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. From 1949 until his death on tour in 1962, he held that position even as opera house appointments (Dresden 1953 to 1955, and the Berliner Staatsoper from 1955 onward) occupied increasing amounts of time. His dual positions made him one of the Eastern bloc's most authoritative and celebrated musicians. In the years shortly before his death, Konwitschny appeared abroad in such venues as Salzburg and London and toured elsewhere in Austria, West Germany, Poland, Soviet Russia, and Japan. As an interpreter, he eschewed the precise attacks expected of Western conductors in favor of deeper tone coloring and a spontaneous search for meaning. For EMI, his recordings of Der fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser are compelling, despite casting deficiencies in both title roles.

Franz Konwitschny was a yeoman conductor. Not a stellar podium personality, but a musician who respected the need for craftsmanship and still managed to probe deeply into the scores that held greatest meaning to him. While the music of his own time appealed to him less than the masterworks of the Classical and Romantic ages, he still made time for the works of such composers as Dessau and Eisler. Konwitschny's early death came as a blow to an art form that needed individuals of such gifts and such devotion to high purpose. The majority of Konwitschny's recordings were made for the East German branch of Philips, and the company's successor, Berlin Classics, honored his memory with the release of an 11-CD box set of his performances in 2001.