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unusual facts about Astrid Varnay


Astrid Varnay

In 1998, she published her autobiography Fifty-Five Years in Five Acts: My Life in Opera, written with Donald Arthur (German title is Hab' mir's gelobt).


Jess Thomas

His recordings include Die Meistersinger (with Claire Watson, 1963), Die Frau ohne Schatten (1963), Siegfried (conducted by Herbert von Karajan, 1968–69), Ariadne auf Naxos (conducted by Karl Böhm, 1969) and, from Bayreuth, Parsifal (with Irene Dalis as Kundry, led by Hans Knappertsbusch, 1962) and Lohengrin (with Anja Silja and Astrid Varnay, 1962).

Martha Mödl

Her Venus in Hamburg was noticed by Wieland Wagner, and she was invited to play the role of Kundry at Bayreuth in 1951, becoming part of a group of singers called the "New Bayreuth," often sharing roles with Astrid Varnay.

Susan Salms-Moss

In 1977, she earned a music degree at the Musikhochschule Rheinland (then called Robert-Schumann-Institut) in Düsseldorf, Germany, where she studied with Wagnerian soprano Astrid Varnay.


see also