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The German mezzo-soprano, Helrun Gardow, began her training at the Musikhochschule of Berlin in 1963 with Richard Sengeleitner, and continued her studies in the years 1969-1971 at the Musikhochschule of Cologne. She was also pupil of Josef Metternich in Cologne and Munich and of Sara Sforni Corti in Milan.
Afterwards Helrun Gardow already appeared in the summer of 1968 at the Festival Freilichtbühne Rehberge in Berlin, and from 1969 to 1976 she was engaged at the Theatre of the City Bonn. In 1976 she was signed with the Opera House of Zürich, at which she unfolded a successful activity during the following ten years until 1987. Here she could be heard, among other things, as Rosina in the Barbiere of Sevilla, as Minerva in Monteverdi’s Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria, as Nicklausse in Hoffmanns Erzählungen, as Suzuki in Madame Butterfly, as Mary in The Flying Dutchman, as Octavian and as Annina in the Rosenkavalier, as Olga in the Eugen Onegin and as Cherubino in Le Nozze de Figaro. Further stage roles of the artist were Orpheus of Gluck, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, Maddalena in Rigoletto, the Azucena in Il Trovatore, the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos, Venus in Tannhäuser, and Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther. She made guest appearances at the Opera House of Copenhagen, at the Deutschen Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf-Duisburg, at the State Opera of Hamburg, in Berne and Gelsenkirchen and with the Ensemble of Zürich Opera House in Berlin, Dresden, Wiesbaden, Munich, Vienna, at the Milan’s La Scala, at Festival of Edinburgh, in Lausanne and Athens.
As concert and oratorio soloist Helrun Gardow had great successes on international level (concert appearances in Amsterdam, Cologne, Frankfurt a.M., Paris, Madrid, Napoli, Seoul) in a very broad repertoire. At the Opera House of Zürich she appeared in both premieres of the operas Ein Engel kommt nach Babylon (1977) and Der Kirschgarten (1984), by Rudolf Kelterborn.
Since 1987 she moved her centre of activity to Seoul (Korea). She worked there as opera and a concert singer as well as directress of the ARTCOM (Computer Visual Art & Music). However, at the beginning of the nineties she came back to Europe.
Recordings: Telefunken (Incoronazione di Poppea and Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria by Monteverdi, Dido and Aeneas by Purcell, Magnificat (BWV 243) and several Cantatas of J.S. Bach) CBS (Sacred music of Johannes Brahms), FSM-Aulos (Theresienmesse of J. Haydn, Missa brevis D major of W.A. Mozart). |
