Astrid Varnay

about

Ibolyka Astrid Maria Varnay (25 April 1918 – 4 September 2006) was an American dramatic soprano of Hungarian heritage and Swedish birth, who did most of her work in the United States and Germany. She was one of the best-known Wagnerian heroic sopranos of her generation. Her voice on record is readily recognisable by its seemingly limitless upper register Both her parents were Hungarian and born in small towns in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but she was born in Stockholm, Sweden, where her parents were living during part of World War I. They named her "Astrid" in honor of the teenaged Princess Astrid of Sweden, a popular figure in that country. Astrid's mother Maria Junghans (who changed her name to Javor when she took to the stage as a singer), born October 15, 1889, was a noted coloratura soprano with acoustic recordings to her credit, and her father Alexander Varnay (born September 11, 1889) was a spinto tenor. Opera was the family business, and Varnay grew up backstage at the world's opera houses. Her father founded, and both parents ran, the Opera Comique Theater in Kristiania (later Oslo), Norway (1918-1921). During one performance, Astrid was swaddled in the lower drawer of the dressing room chest of drawers of the young Kirsten Flagstad. The family moved to Argentina, then New York, where her father died at age 35 in 1924. Two years later her mother married tenor Fortunato de Angelis. Varnay had been studying to be a pianist but decided at age eighteen to become a sing

top songs

albums

Astrid Varnay - Complete Opera Scenes and Orchestral Songs on DG

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Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana/Leoncavallo: I Pagliacci

Wagner : La Walkyrie (Die Walküre)

Lebendige Vergangenheit - Astrid Varnay

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100 Best Choruses

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The Very Best of: Montserrat Caballe

Die Walküre

Wagner, Beethoven, Verdi, Halévy

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Wagner : Lohengrin

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100 Best Soprano Arias

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Wagner: Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods)

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Prima Donnas - 30 Great Divas (Disc 1)

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