  g(11696700)a(1393595))
| | Martin Janis | | soprano |  
| Soprano Janis Martin trained with Julia Monroe in Sacramento then with Lili Wexberg and Otto Guth in New York. She sang first in the opera department of the University of California, Berkeley and made her professional debut with San Francisco Opera in 1960. In her debut year she sang a Flower Girl in Parsifal, a Norn and a Walküre in The Ring and Annina in La traviata, before moving up to Venus in Tannhäuser, Quickly in Falstaff and Marina in Boris Godunov." Her New York City Opera debut in 1962 was as Mrs. Grose in Britten's The Turn of the Screw. Also in 1962, she won the Metropolitan Opera Auditions and was awarded a three year contract, initiating her international career with a Met debut as Flora in La Traviata. She came to Europe in 1965 and was engaged intil 1969 at Nuremberg Opera as a mezzo-soprano until 1969. In 1970 she undertook here first soprano role, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. She made guest appearances at La Scala, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Amsterdam, Zürich, Monte Carlo and at Covent Garden in London (in 1973 as Marie in Wozzeck. Since 1970 she has been a regular performer at Deutsche Oper Berlin and at the Zürich Opera, where she had great success as Isolde and Kundry. She has also made guest appearances with the State Operas of Hamburg, Munich and Stuttgart and in the opera houses of Cologne, Frankfurt am Main and with the Bayreuth Festival. In Bayreuth she first appeared in 1968-69 as Magdalene in Die Meistersinger, Fricka and the 2nd Norn in The Ring, then in 1970 as Eva, 1970-72 as Gurtune, 1971-72 as Sieglinde, 1973 as Freia and in 1971-73 as Kundry. In 1989 she returned to the Bayreuth Festival as Brünnhilde in the Ring and in 1995-96 as Kundry. In North America she has been a guest at Chicago Lyric Opera as Tosca and at San Francisco, Philadelphia and San Diego, among others. At La Scala in Milan she was heard as Marie in Wozzeck and in 1980 haad a great success there with Schönberg's dramatic monologue Erwartung. In 1973, she returned to the Met as a soprano, debuting there as Marie in "Wozzeck" and later singing Sieglinde and Kundry. In 1984 she appeared at the Salzburg Festival in a concert performance of F.Schrekers Die Gezeichneten, in 1985 she appeared at the Grand Theatre in Geneva as Isolde, in 1986 at Houston Opera in the title role in R. Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos and in 1987 at the Turin Opera as the Walküre Brünnhilde. In 1988 she appeared with Cologne Opera as the Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten, in 1990 at Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf as Leonore in Fidelio, in 1991 at the Munich State Opera as Kundry, at the Theatre de la Monnaie in Brussels as Brünnhilde in the Ring, and in 1992 she sang Senta at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples. She renewed her Dyer's Wife at the opening performances at the Nagoya, Japan Opera House in 1992. Other roles in her stage repertoire include the Countess and Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Giulietta in Les contes d'Hoffman, Brangäne, Elektra, Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos and Octavian. No less meaningful is her international concert career. She is married to Gerhard Hellwig, the director of the Schöneberger Boy's Choir. Recordings: HMV (Rienzi), Decca (Der Fliegende Holländer), CBS (Erwartung), Wergo (Sancta Susanna of Hindemith). |
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