TREMENDOUS SINGING!!!! Helen Traubel 1899 - 1972 Compilation of the legendary soprano

0:00 Einsam in truben tagen from Wagner's Lohengrin
7:18 Tragt ihr das schiff from Wagner's Die fliegende hollander
14:24 Ich sah das kind an seiner mutter brust from Wagner's Parsifal
21:24 Divinités du Styx from Gluck's Alceste
25:28 Die Allmacht by Franz schubert
30:43 Im treibhaus from Wagner's wesendonk lieder
38:06 War ech so schmalich from Wagner's Die Walkure
45:37 Schmerzen from Wagner's wesendonk lieder
THE END :)

Helen Francesca Traubel (June 16, 1899 – July 28, 1972) was an American opera and concert singer. A dramatic soprano, she was best known for her Wagnerian roles, especially those of Brünnhilde and Isolde.[2]

Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, she began her career as a concert singer and went on to sing at the Metropolitan Opera from 1937 to 1953. Starting in the 1950s, she also developed a career as a nightclub and cabaret singer as well as appearing in television, films and musical theatre. Traubel spent her later years in Santa Monica, California, where she died at the age of 73.
Traubel was born in St. Louis, Missouri to a prosperous family of German descent. She was the daughter of Otto Ferdinand Traubel, a pharmacist, and Clara Traubel (née Stuhr). She studied singing in her native city with Louise Vetta-Karst and later in New York City with Giuseppe Boghetti among other teachers. She made her debut as a concert singer with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in 1923, and in 1926 she received an offer to join the Metropolitan Opera company after performing the Liebestod from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at the Lewisohn Stadium under conductor Rudolph Ganz. She turned down the Met's offer in order to continue with her studies and career as a concert singer.[3]
On May 12, 1937, Traubel made her debut appearance on the opera stage, after composer Walter Damrosch asked her to sing the role of Mary Rutledge in the world premiere of his opera The Man Without a Country at the Metropolitan Opera.[3][4] She made her debut with the Chicago City Opera Company later that year, appearing there until the company went bankrupt in 1939. In 1940, she joined the roster of the Chicago Opera Company, remaining a member of that company until it too went bankrupt in 1946. She made her debut with the San Francisco Opera as Brünnhilde in Die Walküre on October 9, 1945, with Lauritz Melchior as Siegmund, Margaret Harshaw as Fricka, and William Steinberg conducting; she made several further appearances there during 1945 and 1947.[5]

Since the Metropolitan already had two first-class Wagnerian sopranos, Kirsten Flagstad and Marjorie Lawrence, Traubel at first had difficulty finding her niche at the Met. Her debut as a regular member of the company was as Sieglinde in Die Walküre in 1939, the only standard role which she had previously sung, at the Chicago Opera. Flagstad left the US in 1941 to visit her homeland of Norway and could not return due to the war in Europe. The same year, Lawrence was stricken with polio and her career was curtailed.

On February 22, 1941, Arturo Toscanini conducted Traubel and tenor Lauritz Melchior in excerpts from Wagnerian operas, including act 1, scene 3 of Die Walküre on the live radio broadcast concert of the NBC Symphony Orchestra. RCA Victor later released recordings of excerpts from the concert, as well as a classic studio recording of Traubel in Brünnhilde's Immolation Scene from Götterdämmerung. Traubel later triumphed in Tannhäuser and in Tristan und Isolde. She was renowned for her powerful voice, which was often described as a "gleaming sword"; her endurance and purity of tone were unsurpassed, especially as Brünnhilde and Isolde. Although she longed to sing Italian opera, she never appeared in an Italian opera performance onstage, although she often included Italian arias and songs in her recital repertoire. Towards the end of her career at the Met, she added the Marschallin in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier briefly to her repertoire.[4]

In 1948, while her Met career was at its height, US President Harry S. Truman contracted her to act as an "advisor" to his daughter, Margaret, who was hoping to launch a career as a classical singer. Traubel's 1959 autobiography, St. Louis Woman, contains an account of the three years she spent in the role, and how in the end she felt it had adversely affected her stature in the music world to have her name associated with "such a musical aspirant" of questionable talent.[6]

Traubel's association with the Metropolitan Opera ended in 1953; General Manager Rudolf Bing chose not to renew her contract after expressing disapproval of her radio and TV appearances alongside the likes of Jimmy Durante, and her wish to expand her lucrative career in major supper and night clubs. Traubel went on to appear at the Copacabana, as well as in many cameo television roles.[7]