Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's sublime voice took her to international fame as a leading interpreter of German lieder and opera's classic arias. Throughout the 1950s and '60s she toured the most celebrated concert halls in Europe and America and made many definitive recordings including 'Der Rosenkavalier'. She became a highly regarded vocal teacher and her artistic reputation survived revelations of her involvement with the Nazi Party before and during World War Two.
Born in what was then the Prussian town of Jarocin in central Poland to German parents, Schwarzkopf's vocal gifts were noticed when she was very young and she sang Eurydice in a school production of 'Orfeo et Eurydice' at the age of 12. Accepted at the Berlin High School for Music in 1934, with her high range she studied as a coloratura soprano. In 1938, she debuted professionally in Wagner's 'Parsifal' with the Berlin Deutsch Oper, where she remained for four years. During that time, she joined the Nazi Party although after the war in order to be accepted by the Vienna State Opera she denied she'd been an active member. Historians claim otherwise and some suggest that her affiliation with senior Nazis helped boost her career.
Post-war tours with the Vienna State Opera led to her 1947 debut as Donna Elvira in 'Don Giovanni' in London's Royal Opera House in Covent Garden and in 1948 she sang the role of the Marschallin in 'Der Rosankavalier' for the first time at La Scala in Milan. Soon after, she met Walter Legge, co-founder of the London Philharmonic and they married in London in 1953. A leading figure in the recording industry, Legge signed Schwarzkopf to the EMI label and she went on to achieve long-lasting fame for her recordings of key works by major composers such as Bach, Brahms, and Mahler and particularly Mozart and Richard Strauss.
In 1971, she announced her retirement from the opera circuit and thereafter focused on lieder recitals. After Legge died in 1979, she gave that up too but remained in the spotlight with her notoriously demanding masterclasses. She also oversaw her recording legacy, which critics say remains almost peerless. While Nazi allegations swirled around her, those recordings remained among EMI's bestsellers through the 1990s. Made a Dame by Queen Elizabeth II in 1992, she kept to her homes in Switzerland and then Austria until her death in 2006 aged 90.
