Astrid Varnay

A great dramatic soprano who later conquered many major mezzo roles, Varnay was a celebrated Wagnerian and a legend at the Bayreuth Festival. Born in in 1918 in Sweden to parents of Hungarian, French and German heritage, Varnay was brought up in the US where she studied – initially piano before moving to the voice at the age of 18. Within a few years, she'd learned 15 core operatic roles, 11 of which were by Wagner. Her Met debut came in 1941 when she stepped in, with no rehearsal, for Lotte Lehmann as Sieglinde and six days later as Brünnhilde, standing in for Helen Traubel. European debuts followed after the war and in 1951 she first appeared at Bayreuth, returning every summer for the next 17 years. Making her home in Munich, she continued to sing the major dramatic soprano roles before, at the end of 1960s, taking on some new mezzo parts, including Klytemnestra in Richard Strauss's Elektra and Herodias in his Salome, a role she made her own, singing it some 236 times. (She filmed the role, directed by Götz Friedrich, and conducted by Karl Böhm opposite Teresa Stratas's Salome.) She retired from the stage in Munich in 1995, 55 years after her Met debut, and died in the Bavarian capital in 2006.