“…there is no doubting that her voice is well-suited to the Straussian sound world – all long, liquid lines and lustrous floated high notes.”
The Scotsman
“German soprano Anne Schwanewilms brought rapturous beauty to the songs of Strauss and Mahler…[she] is both physically and vocally a consummate actress, revealing pathos and poignancy and ambiguity. With a voice as gorgeous as Schwanewilms’s, everything sounds fabulous.”
Glasgow Herald
On the opera stages of Europe, you are currently feted as the absolute Strauss-Diva. Have you achieved your goal?
No, I haven’t! My goals actually change each day and match my life at any given time. I never know where it is taking me. Life changes constantly, and I feel I am developing all the time. You can’t plan everything. Every day I am ready to tackle a pile of tasks and consider them my life’s work, but I remain very curious and eager about the new things happening to me.
Famous conductors like Maazel, Chailly and Levine are falling over themselves for you…
Well of course they are all marvellous conductors. I love working with people who are famous and show why they have every right to be. But also on my wish-list are those who conduct in smaller and more middle-sized houses. If they are not so well known, there are always surprises and the chance for new interpretations.
As a soprano much in demand, you received the ‘Singer of the Year’ award from Opernwelt magazine in 2002. What did such an honour mean to you?
Well, first of all I had no idea such an award existed! In general, I always wanted to distance myself from the stress of competitions and had only entered them three times, winning prizes. I never gave any thought to a distinction like this. Its meaning soon struck me: your name is on every tongue, you have a higher rating and are automatically better known. All in all, it was a very good promotion for me. I’m happy that I didn’t have to strive extra hard for it, because in the end it was also a matter of good fortune that, during that period, I had been able to do such good work and so prove myself.
Extract from an interview with Anne Schwanewilms in Successity, Community for Better Work and Life, July 2006
“Schwanewilms not only looked the part but sounded it, radiantly so. She commanded a warm, creamy middle range and lustrous high notes that floated over Strauss’s sumptuous orchestrations.”
Chicago Tribune
“With her svelte figure and Elisabeth Schwarzkopfesque beauty, Anne Schwanewilms not only looked the part of the Marschallin but was fully inside the music and words…Her soprano revealed a warm, creamy middle range and lustrous high notes that floated over Strauss’s sumptuous orchestrations. This Marschallin wore melancholy like a fine French perfume in her monologue, and her natural dignity and grace rescued the finale from any hint of mawkishness.”
Opera
“She has a lovely silvery soprano, strong enough to hold its own in the large Civic Opera House but with a soft edge that gives her Marschallin womanly warmth. Slim and graceful, she found a fine balance between self-awareness and imperiousness….Schwanewilms captivated the eye and ear, especially in her Act 1 monologue. Longing to freeze time in its tracks, she seemed to be having a quiet conversation with herself, a touching, poetic one…As she unfurled Strauss’s long-lined, wistful phrases, as she compared time to a wind rustling against her face, we could almost feel that unsettling breeze ourselves.”
Chicago Sun-Times
“…first and foremost Anne Schwanewilms in the title role, a warm soprano with a radiant high register…lyrical lustre and sounds of pensive reverie reminiscent of Ariadne. The nuances of her voice ranged from transfigured sweetness in Act 2 via the luxurious vocal splendour of the great monologue at the beginning of Act 3 to melancholy tenderness in the final scene.”
Opera
“Ms Schwanewilms …is a very fine soprano with a clear, dusky-toned and focused voice. Her soft sustained high notes, delivered with scant vibrato and true pitch, were ravishing.”
New York Times
“Anne Schwanewilms is spectacular, her voice powerfully soaring over choir and orchestra, yet perfectly balanced and pure.”
Musicweb International
“As Carlotta, the soprano Anne Schwanewilms was the standout, with an icy radiance to her voice and a mesmerizing stage presence.”
New York Times
“…Above all, Anne Schwanewilms was transfixing as Carlotta. With her hotly expressive stage presence and coolly beautiful soprano voice, she caught the ambiguities of Carlotta’s character and, by extension, all the fire and ice of Schreker’s world.”
New Yorker
When I first studied the songs, their beautiful legato lines were very much to the fore, the lovely wind passages, music which is so wide-ranging, so stirring and so…not sentimental but sensual. ‘Sentimental’ gives a completely wrong impression. Sensual. Today, I am older, friends have died, and the songs work quite differently for me. ‘Im Abendrot’ [‘At Sunset’], for example, sometimes brings tears to my eyes when I’m sitting at the piano at home and can picture this sunset and its dimming light of life – Oh, God! In this respect, for me personally the songs are even more affecting than they were a few years ago. But they musn’t be called a ‘farewell’, because that means the end of everything. I find songs which describe death and the frontiers of life like this full of hope and joy. You can feel, and hear, that Strauss was a believer. He transforms Eichendorff and Hesse so feelingly into positive harmonies and positive lines that the heart swells – he gives you hope, even after the recent death of firends. You may bid them farewell, but it is only a farewell from this world, after which comes something new….
Extracts from an NDR interview with Elizabeth Richter for the closing concert of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, with the NDR Symphony Orchestra under Christopher von Dohnanyi, August 2005