Frida Leider (1888-1975)

Scene from Act III
Die Walküre by Richard Wagner

Frida Leider was born — and died — in Berlin. She made her début at Halle in 1915, and filled other engagements at Rostock, Königsberg and Hamburg until her move in 1923 to the Berlin Staatsoper, where she was principal dramatic soprano for 15 years. She first performed at Covent Garden in 1924 and became the favorite Wagnerian soprano there, returning every year until 1938. Leider was one of the great Wagnerian sopranos who also excelled in the lighter roles of Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss and Verdi. Between 1928 and 1938 she was a regular at Bayreuth as Brünnhilde, Isolde and Kundry. Her US career was mainly in Chicago rather than New York.

According to Desmond Shawe-Taylor, “Leider was a splendid artist with a dark-coloured, ample and well-trained voice of lovely quality and a fine-spun legato and purity of phrase that enabled her to excel in Mozart and Italian opera as well as in Wagner. During her best years she made many valuable recordings, often in company with Melchior, Schorr and her other regular Wagnerian associates.”

Frida Leider’s autobiography, Das war mein Teil was published in 1959, and the English version, Playing My Part, came out in 1966.

In this scene, recorded in Berlin in the mid twenties, Brünnhilde pleads with Wotan (her father, played here by Friedrich Schorr), who has condemned her to lose her divinity and as a mortal woman, sleep, to become the bride of anyone who awakens her.