She performed and recorded works by composers of the 20th century and appeared in the world premieres of operas by Wolfgang Rihm and Jörg Widmann. She portrayed her roles with "dramatic conviction".[1]
Life and career
Born in Mannheim on 24 February 1951,[2] the daughter of a physician, Schnaut grew up in Mainz. She received violin and singing lessons as a child. She had also lessons in both ballet and expressionist dance, trained rowing for two years and took part in a theatre group.[3] She studied first at the Peter Cornelius Conservatory of Mainz, majoring in violin, and at the same time musicology at the University of Mainz.[2] At the conservatory, she had to take a second subject and chose voice because she wanted to avoid piano.[3] Her teacher sent her to Musikhochschule Frankfurt, where she studied with Elsa Cavelti from 1971. Cavelti trained her as a contralto but predicted soon that she would be Sieglinde some day. Her studies were supported by a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. She achieved, together with Uta-Maria Flake, a first prize at the 1975 Deutscher Musikwettbewerb in Bonn.[3]
In 1977 Schnaut performed at the Bayreuth Festival for the first time, singing Waltraute and the Second Norn in the Jahrhundertring staged by Patrice Chéreau and conducted by Pierre Boulez.[4][5] She appeared in these roles in its filmed version Der Ring des Nibelungen.[6] She performed at the festival in 1980 as Wellgunde in Götterdämmerung, and in 1985 as Venus in Tannhäuser and the Third Norn.[4]
Schnaut was a member of the Nationaltheater Mannheim from 1980, where she performed the role of Ophelia in the premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's Die Hamletmaschine.[4] She performed Marie in Alban Berg's Wozzeck in an authorised version, which was a step on her way into the soprano range.[3]
Soprano
In private study with Hanne-Lore Kuhse in East Berlin, Schnaut developed to a dramatic soprano.[7] She travelled once a month for several days of training.[3] In 1985 she sang the title role of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde at the Theater Dortmund.[4] She portrayed major roles at the Bayreuth Festival, in 1986 Sieglinde in Die Walküre, and in 1987 as Ortrud in Lohengrin.[4] In 1988 she appeared as Isolde at the Hamburgische Staatsoper in the production by Ruth Berghaus which was her international breakthrough.[8][9]
"Gabriele Schnaut, a German soprano making her Met debut as Brünnhilde, gave a performance that was not unblemished vocally, but her characterization was so finely detailed that one happily overlooked the few flaws. Ms. Schnaut's Brünnhilde undergoes a real transformation: she is unusually spirited in her second-act discussions with Wotan, thoroughly regal at the start of her encounter with Siegmund and disconsolate, but not entirely repentant, in the finale, when she is condemned to life as a mortal."[13]
In 1997, the magazine Die Deutsche Bühne named her "the only real dramatic singer-actor of our time ("die einzige, echte hochdramatische Sängerdarstellerin unserer Zeit"), for her "impressive stage presence, based on scenic detailed work and psychological insight in her characters".[16]
Character roles
Schnaut changed to character roles in the mezzo-soprano range from 2008.[9] In Munich she appeared as Emilia Marty in Janáček's Věc Makropulos and mezzo roles Klytämnestra in Elektra and Herodias in Salome. In 2006 she sang the premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's Das Gehege,[11] a monodrama commissioned by the State Opera to be combined in a double bill with Salome, both directed by William Friedkin.[17]
Schnaut appeared as Euphrat in the world premiere of Jörg Widmann's Babylon in October 2012, conducted by Kent Nagano.[18] In 2013 she portrayed the desperate character of the sacristan Kostelnicka Buryjovka in Janáček's Jenufa like a heroine from ancient tragedy, but with tentative gestures of affection, as a review noted.[19] She appeared at the Staatsoper Berlin, in the Schillertheater, in 2014 as Widow Begbick in Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, and a reviewer noted that she "sang with relish and dramatic conviction and the rough quality of her aging voice was an excellent match for hard-edged sentimentality of Weill's music".[1] In 2019 she portrayed Herodias at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as a distinctive character profile.[9]
Schnaut recorded Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio with Christoph von Dohnányi (1990). A review devotes a paragraph to her performance, noting:
Her vocal acting is excellent: an example is her eruption after the on-stage plotting ... She starts with steady, controlled recitative before moving into her truly dramatic soprano with some fairly horrible leaps which she hits well. If there is a suggestion of a lack of vocal strength in her lower register and a slight diminishing of tonal beauty on high, it is more than made up for by her evenness of head to chest transfers, her assurance of vocal line and the believable drama with which she invests the role.[25]
Bright and forceful in her war cry, she shows suitable concern at her father's distress, is wise and dignified in her colloquy with Siegmund, the phrase starting "So wenig achtest du" as inward as it should be. In Act 3 her appeal to Wotan "War es so schmählich?" is lovingly projected ... Even better is the phrase later in the scene, "zu lieben, was du geliebt", where Schnaut's basically bright tone takes on a softer timbre.[26]
^Luster, Gabriele (8 March 2013). ""Jenufa" – Tragödie unter Strom" (in German). Münchner Merkur. Archived from the original on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
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