When Elsa Dreisig enters a room, the light turns on. This also applies if the room is very large, for example like that of the Vienna Konzerthaus. In the fall, before the start of the Munich opera season, the Bavarian State Orchestra toured Europe and also played in Vienna. On the program after the break: Mahler’s Fourth Symphony. Its fourth movement is an extended folk setting for soprano voice, “The Heavenly Life” from “Des Knaben Wunderhorn”. Gustav Mahler, who always wrote very detailed performance markings into his scores, notes here that the last verse should be performed “very tenderly and mysteriously until the end.” Mahler didn’t know that Elsa Dreisig would one day take over the vocal part in his Vienna. It would have been happy.
Elsa Dreisig sings the Countess in Mozart’s “Le nozze di Figaro” – Munich
