Sunday, April 25, 2021
Christa Ludwig acknowledges her Gramophone Lifetime Achievement Award in 2016
Christa Ludwig has died at the age of 93, one of the great singers of the post-war years, and an artist beloved of conductors as different as Otto Klemperer, Karl Böhm, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Sir Georg Solti, James Levine and Seiji Ozawa. James Jolly recalls a glorious career.
The only time London audiences heard Christa Ludwig sing in English was in concert performances of Leonard Bernstein s
Candide. She took the part of the Old Woman and brought the house down in the glorious I am easily assimilated . It might have been the motto for a mezzo whose ability to get inside a host of different roles - and to work with such totally different artists as Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan - was extraordinary. It was a long career, well represented on disc and entirely reflecting her range and diversity. As a favourite mezzo of the producer