Pilar Lorengar
Pilar Lorengar (actually Lorenza Pilar Garcia, born January 16, 1928 in Zaragoza, Spain, † June 2, 1996 in Berlin) was a Spanish operatic soprano.
She studied eight years at Otein Angeles and then in Berlin with Carl Ebert and Hertha Klust. In 1949 she made her debut as a chorus singer at the Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid, where she was engaged for a few years. In 1952 she made her first solo in Barcelona Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) and the Brahms Requiem.
Her operatic debut was in 1955 as Cherubino in Aix -en- Provence, on the Royal Opera House Covent Garden as Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata. The Glyndebourne Festival debut came a year later, in 1958 performance at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires as Pamina in The Magic Flute.
In 1958, she was also involved in the Städtische Oper Berlin, where she remained as one of the most popular artists of the ensemble to the end of her career. When in 1961 the German Opera Berlin was opened at the Bismarck Street, she sang in led by Ferenc Fricsay opening premiere of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. In 1963, she was awarded the exclusive title of the chamber singer.
The operas of Mozart was over all the years of her work in Berlin a focus of artistic activity of Pilar Lorengar: Fiordiligi, Countess, Donna Elvira and Pamina has sung in different productions, in some few performances, the Donna Anna. In addition, she sang lyrical parts of the German, Italian and French repertoire. She had worked as Regina in Mathis der Maler or Agathe in Der Freischütz, Mimi in La Boheme and Cio-Cio- San in Madama Butterfly, and Michaela to hear as as in Carmen and Melisande in Pelleas et Melisande. Great successes they celebrated but also in the Slavic specialist, first as Marie in The Bartered Bride, later especially as Jenufa and as Tatyana in Eugene Onegin. Very carefully she has expanded her repertoire: the German trade it proved itself first as Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, later as Elsa in Lohengrin. From the mid- 60s, she amazed her audience in Berlin more often in dramatic roles of the Italian repertoire as Elisabeth in Don Carlos, Violetta in La Traviata, Tosca and Desdemona in Otello.
A travel career was not to Pilar Lorengars taste. She was the continuous work in an ensemble most important prerequisite for their artistic development and perfection. Nevertheless, it is over the years at all the major opera houses of the world aufgetreten.1961 they first met in Salzburg on Idomeneo, at New York's Metropolitan Opera, she made her debut in 1966 as Donna Elvira Don Giovanni. Between 1966 and 1982 she sang at the Metropolitan Opera 16 roles in her repertoire in more than 150 performances. She has performed in Vienna and Milan, London and Paris, and was repeatedly heard at the Glyndebourne Festival. Several tours have taken her to Japan. On the concert stage she has given recitals in which they would like in addition to songs by German and French composers presented songs of Spanish composers. In addition, she performed many times in concerts of the great symphony orchestras: She was with the Berlin Philharmonic as well as a frequent guest at the Vienna Philharmonic.
In exploring the dramatic Italian specialist Pilar Lorengar has very deliberately omitted. Deals Aida or Amelia in Un ballo in maschera to sing, she has repeatedly rejected and thus her voice saves overexertion and wear. So they still sounded in recent performances in which she stood on the stage, striking teen, her voice had lost from the bright vibrant sound nothing and the height was safe and radiated effortlessly as ever. Gladly would she have sung but some batches of Richard Strauss, but she refrained, because they feared that their ability, the subtleties of the language of Hugo von Hofmannsthal to meet, may not be sufficient.
Their last triumph in Berlin in 1987 was the Valentine in John Dews 's production of Giacomo Meyerbeer's Les Huguenots.
On 1 October 1994, she was awarded the Order of Merit of the State of Berlin. Pilar Lorengar died in 1996 at the age of 68 years in her adopted home of Berlin from cancer.