Helga Dernesch

Helga Dernesch ( born February 3, 1939 in Vienna) is an Austrian opera singer ( dramatic soprano ).

Helga Dernesch studied at the conservatory of her hometown, sang 1961-1963 in Bern, in 1964 and 1965 in Wiesbaden, Germany, from 1966 to 1969 in Cologne, came in 1965 for the first time at the Bayreuth Festival on (as Wellgunde in the ring ), 1969 for the first time at the Salzburg Easter Festival. Since then she gives guest performances all over the world (Metropolitan Opera, Bavarian State Opera, and many others). After a vocal crisis in the 70s Dernesch made ​​on the advice of the conductor Christoph von Dohnányi a change of subject into the dramatic character roles and was thus able to extend her career by singing roles such as Clytemnestra, Herodias and nurse. It is with the Austrian tenor Werner Krenn ( born 1943 ) married.

Helga Dernesch was in the late 1960s, the Lieblingsinterpretin Herbert von Karajan, who, each in the female leading roles, took up with her Siegfried, Götterdämmerung, Tristan und Isolde and Fidelio. In these she could not take it while in power and steel with her colleague Birgit Nilsson, but got their big emotional expressiveness and their good singing technique to advantage. Another highlight of their discography is the current conducted by Georg Solti 's "Tannhäuser ".