Elizabeth Schwarzkopf

Among CDs and DVDs, I don’t have two of much, but I have two versions Così Fan Tutte featuring Elizabeth Schwarzkopf—the von Karajan from 1954 and the Karl Böhm from 1962, both produced by her husband , Walter Legge. Serious opera buffs will debate the relative merits but I like them both and will play either, more or less indiscriminately (and her Donna Elvira, and her Countess Almaviva, and her “champagne operettas”). For me, Schwarzkopf has always been the talisman of a kind of ersatz nostalgia—my pining for a lost youth I never really experienced. In the afterglow, Schwarzkophf’s heyday seems like a kind of a Golden Age, Europe with the War behind it and alive with inimitable talent. Bummer that she had that Nazi rap on her resume, but sadder still, it didn’t seem entirely out of character. She seemed to be a lady who knew she was and what she was here for, and wasn’t terribly interested in anything or anybody that stood in her way. It may not always have been the most attractive personality but it was a personality, and an age of marketing where every flavor seems to be vanilla, you’ve got to cherish an artist so much herself and so coherent.

Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, died August 2, 2006, aged 90. RIP.

Update: Terry Teachout has a good take here.