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Born: 1929 - Guben (on the Lusatian Neisse river), Brandenburg, Germany
Died: January 2009 - Kassel, Hessen, Germany |
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The German mezzo-soprano, Margarete [Margarethe] Ast, studied singing at the Musikhochschule Berlin.
Margarete Ast began her stage career with an engagement at the Staatsoper of Hamburg from 1955 to 1958. From 1958 she worked at the Staatstheater of Kassel, where she has since performed for over thirty yearr. She appeared in the premieres in Kassel of the operas Prometheus by R. Wagner-Régeny (1959), Barnstable by F. Burt (1969) and Ein Menschentraum by P.M. Hamel (1981) and earlier in Hamburg in Pallas Athene weint by Ernst Krenek (October 17, 1955). In the years 1965-1968 she was also a member of the Wiener Staatsoper. She also sang at the Opera House of Frankfurt, the Deutschen Opernhaus Berlin and in 1962 at the Wiener Festwochen.
Margarete Ast’s stage repertoire was unusually broad and included roles such as Orpheus by Gluck, Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro, Magdalene in Meistersinger, Erda, Waltraute, Fricka and Floßhilde in Der Ring des Nibelungen, the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos by R. Strauss, Adelaide in Arabella, Herodias in Salome and Clytemnestra in Elektra, also by R. Strauss; Amneris in Aida, Eboli in Verdi's' Don Carlos, Quickly in his Falstaff ; Marina in Boris Godunov, Küsterin in Janáceck’s Jenufa', Kabanicha in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Dmitri Shostakovich, Countess Geschwitz in Lulu by Alban Berg, Mrs. Herring in Benjamin Britten's Albert Herring and Charlotte in Die Soldaten by B.A. Zimmermann. She also perfformed as a concert singer.
Recordings: Columbia. |
