Sigrid Kehl

A mezzo-soprano and dramatic soprano, Sigrid Kehl has been with the Leipzig Opera for thirty-five years. Born in Berlin on November 23, 1929, she studied opera singing in Darmstadt, piano and pedagogy in Erfurt from 1948 to 1951, then at the University of Berlin until 1956. She made her debut at the Berlin Opera in Borodin's Prince Igor, conducted by Horst Stein, before going on to a series of roles. After winning second prize at the Robert Schumann International Competition in 1956, she moved to the Leipzig Opera, where she enjoyed a long and varied career in over seventy different roles, starting with Verdi's Le Trouvère, followed by Puccini's Tosca, Verdi's Aida, Strauss's Le Chevalier à la rose and La Femme sans ombre , and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde and Les Maîtres Chanteurs de Nuremberg. In 1961, she recorded Bizet's Carmen under the direction of Herbert Kegel, and the following year, Handel's Radamisto with Horst-Tanu Margraf, followed in 1966 by Verdi's Don Carlos with the Berlin Staatskapelle conducted by Heinz Fricke. In 1968, she played the role in Janáček's opera Jenůfa in Leipzig, under the baton of Vaclav Neumann. In 1973, she took part in the Ring conducted by Joachim Herz, appearing in Rhine Gold and as Brünnhilde in the same cycle. In 1981, she returned to the role of Isolde with Kurt Masur, then to that of Kundry in Parsifal the following season. Sigrid Kehl was also invited by other opera houses, not only in Germany but also in Italy, at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the Teatro Comunale in Bologna and La Fenice in Venice, the Grand Théâtre in Geneva, Berne and Lausanne in Switzerland, the Vienna Opera in 1975-1976 and 1979, as well as the Bolshoi in Moscow, Prague, Budapest, Sofia and Varna. After thirty-five years of loyal service to Leipzig, Sigrid Kehl, appointed Kammersängerin in 1963, retired in 1989. After teaching at Leipzig's Musikhochschule for a decade from 1979, she continued to work as a pedagogue, becoming a member of the Sächsische Akademie der Künste in 1996. Sigrid Kehl died on December 18, 2024 at the age of 95.

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