Elisabeth Sara "Elly" Ameling (born 8 February 1933) is a Dutch soprano, who is particularly known for lieder recitals and for performing works by Johann Sebastian Bach. Performing with distinguished pianists and ensembles around the globe, she was awarded various honours and recording prizes.
Ameling was born in Rotterdam where she grew up. [1] She later sang with Pierre Bernac. She won the first prize during the International Vocal Competition 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands (1956) [2] and the Concours International de Musique in Geneva (1958). [1] After her professional début as a concert singer in Rotterdam in 1953, she performed for more than forty years in virtually every major cultural centre in the world. She appeared with most of the leading international orchestras and conductors, including Seiji Ozawa, André Previn, Wolfgang Sawallisch, [3] Neville Marriner, Karl Münchinger and Edo de Waart.
She made her career mainly as a concert and lieder singer with some excursions into opera, and became world-renowned for her recitals of French and German songs and for her superlative interpretive gifts. She has been equally at home in chamber music, orchestral music, operas, and oratorios. Her operatic roles included Ilia in Mozart's Idomeneo , Fiordiligi in his Così fan tutte in 1958, Jacqueline in Messager's Fortunio in 1959, and the Marchesa in Verdi's Un giorno di regno in 1974, [4] She made her U.S. recital debut at New York's Lincoln Center in 1968 and her opera debut in 1974 as Ilia in Mozart's Idomeneo in Washington, D.C. In 1974, Ameling also performed for the Peabody Mason Concert series in Boston. [5]
Contemporary works, particularly by her countrymen Bertus van Lier and Robert Heppener, are also part of her large repertoire. Ameling has recorded more than 150 albums and has won many recording prizes, including The Edison Award, the Grand Prix du Disque and the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik. When she retired in 1995, she was regarded as one of the most admired and recorded female lieder singers. [1] She now teaches at the Franz Schubert Institut alongside Julius Drake, Helmut Deutsch, Roger Vignoles, and Cynthia Hoffmann.
For her services to music, Ameling has been awarded four honorary degrees and has been knighted, in 1971, by Her Majesty the Queen of The Netherlands to the Order of Orange-Nassau. In 2008, she received the highest civil decoration in the Netherlands, the Order of the Netherlands Lion. In 2015, she was awarded the Hugo Wolf Medal of the International Hugo Wolf Academy in Stuttgart. [6]
Ameling's recordings focus on lieder, with pianists and orchestras. She recorded two songs from Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Benjamin Britten at the 1969 Aldeburgh Festival. [7] In 1970, she recorded Beethoven's Mass in C major with the New Philharmonia Chorus and Orchestra, conducted by Carlo Maria Giulini, alongside Janet Baker, Theo Altmeyer and Marius Rintzler. [8] She recorded in 1979 Mahler Second and Fourth Symphony with the Netherlands Radio Chorus and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra conducted by Bernard Haitink, the Second alongside Aafje Heynis. [9] In 1985, she recorded the Schubert's complete incidental music to Rosamunde with the Rundfunkchor Leipzig and the Gewandhausorchester, conducted by Kurt Masur. [10]
Dame Kiri Jeanette Claire Te Kanawa, is a retired New Zealand opera singer. She had a full lyric soprano voice, which has been described as "mellow yet vibrant, warm, ample and unforced". Her extensive discography includes three albums which featured in the top forty in charts in Australia in the mid-1980s.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau was a German lyric baritone and conductor of classical music, one of the most famous Lieder performers of the post-war period, best known as a singer of Franz Schubert's Lieder, particularly "Winterreise" of which his recordings with accompanists Gerald Moore and Jörg Demus are still critically acclaimed half a century after their release.
Dame Janet Abbott Baker is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.
The Gramophone Classical Music Awards, launched in 1977, are one of the most significant honours bestowed on recordings in the classical record industry. They are often viewed as equivalent to or surpassing the American Grammy award, and referred to as the Oscars for classical music. They are widely regarded as the most influential and prestigious classical music awards in the world. According to Matthew Owen, national sales manager for Harmonia Mundi USA, "ultimately it is the classical award, especially worldwide."
Anne Sofie von Otter is a Swedish mezzo-soprano. Her repertoire encompasses lieder, operas, oratorios and also rock and pop songs.
Karita Marjatta Mattila is a Finnish operatic soprano.
Helen Jeanette Donath is an American soprano with a career spanning fifty years.
Sylvia McNair is an American opera singer and classical recitalist who has also achieved notable success in the Broadway and cabaret genres. McNair, a soprano, has made several critically acclaimed recordings and has won two Grammy Awards.
Cheryl Studer is an American dramatic soprano who has sung at many of the world's foremost opera houses. Studer has performed more than eighty roles ranging from the dramatic repertoire to roles more commonly associated with lyric sopranos and coloratura sopranos, and, in her late stage, mezzo-sopranos. She is particularly known for her interpretations of the works of Richard Strauss and Richard Wagner.
Ann Murray, is an Irish mezzo-soprano.
Aafje Heynis was a Dutch contralto. In 1961, she was awarded the Harriet Cohen International Music Award. A tea rose, hybridised by Buisman 1964, was named after her. She died on 16 December 2015, aged 91.
Edith Mathis is a Swiss soprano and a leading exponent of the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart worldwide. She is known for parts in Mozart operas, but also took part in premieres of operas such as Henze's Der junge Lord.
Soile Marja Isokoski is a Finnish lyric soprano. She is an opera singer as well as a concert and lieder singer.
The Diapason d'Or is a recommendation of outstanding (mostly) classical music recordings given by reviewers of Diapason magazine in France, broadly equivalent to "Editor's Choice", "Disc of the Month" in the British Gramophone magazine.
Elizabeth Norberg-Schulz is a Norwegian-Italian operatic soprano.
Eva Lind is an Austrian soprano singer and TV presenter. Since her international breakthrough in 1985, she specialises in coloratura soprano roles in operas and operettas, besides maintaining an active career in concerts and recitals.
Christian Gerhaher is a German baritone and bass singer in opera and concert, particularly known as a Lieder singer.
Hermine Haselböck is an Austrian mezzo-soprano in opera, concert and lied.
The following lists note recordings in opera and recital of soprano Jessye Norman.
The conductor Bernard Haitink recorded works, especially symphonies and other orchestral works, with different orchestras. He made recordings for several labels, including Philips Records, EMI Classics, Columbia Records, LSO Live, RCO Live, and CSO Resound.
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