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The Polish-born soprano, Hedwig van Debicka [real name: Jadwiga Debicka], studied singing at the Conservatory of Warsaw; then with the conductor and teacher Stermich Pietro de Valcrociata (1868-1938), whom she married in 1916.
Hedwig van Debicka made her debut in 1910 at the Deutsches Theater in Prague as Butterfly. From there she went in 1914 to the Wiener Hofoper, and in 1915 to the Volksoper in Vienna, to the roster of which she belonged until 1924. Here she appeared in 1920 in the premiere of Puccini's La Rondine. From 1924 to 1929 she was a member of the Berliner Staatsoper, where she had great successes and where she still regularly performed until 1936. In 1920-1923 she was a permanent guest at the Staatsoper in Vienna, and could also ne heard in Amsterdam, Budapest, Basel, Paris, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Lvov (Lwów) and Warsaw. She was particularly popular at the Theater of Poznan (Posen), in which her husband was working as director in the years 1922-1929.
Her main stage roles were Konstanze in Entführung aus dem Serail, Pamina in der Zauberflöte, Mathilde in Rossini's Wilhelm Tell, Gilda in Rigoletto, Traviata, Desdemona in Verdi's Othello, Mimi in La Bohème, Isabella in Robert le Diable by Meyerbeer, Marguerite in Faust by Charles Gounod, Eva in Meistersingern and Sophie in Rosenkavalier.
After World War II, Hedwig van Debicka lived as a teacher and concert singer in Rome; in 1950 she was professor at the Wiener Musikakademie.
The beautiful voice of the artist as well as her praised colaratura and lyrical soprano, can be heard on Grammophon and Polygram labels: among others, as Marguerite in an abridged version of Charles Gounod "Faust", arias by Bach, Mozart, Bellini and Verdi (1925, 1929); also Polish Pathé recordings (including duets with Joseph Mann); Odeon-Platte (Berlin, c1913).
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