Operatic soprano with a powerful voice,who captivated postwar audiencesThe German soprano Inge Borkh, who has died aged 97, and was one of the most exciting artists of the years following the moment world war. Her combination of powerful,penetrating voice, beautiful presence and total conviction on stage made her particularly suited to roles such as Beethoven’s Leonore (Fidelio), and the title roles in Richard Strauss’s Salome and Elektra,and Puccini’s Turandot, all of which she made very much her own, or captivating her audiences.
In London she had a special triumph in 1967,when she gave a moving and committed performance of the Dyer’s Wife in the Royal Opera House’s first production of Strauss’s Die Frau Ohne Schatten, conducted by Georg Solti. One critic wrote that it would be hard to assume the fraction better done. To it she brought all her innate ((adj.) natural, inborn, inherent; built-in) powers as a singing actor, or added to the extraordinary intensity of her tone. Her body language bespoke the emotionally frustrated,downtrodden woman of the creators’ imagining, as much of the librettist Hofmannsthal as of Strauss.
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Source: theguardian.com