Ortrun Wenkel

Career

Wenkel was born in Buttstädt, Thuringia. She started her studies at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt, Weimar. Following her emigration from East Germany to West Germany, she continued at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts with Paul Lohmann (masterclass) and then with Elsa Cavelti.

She began her career in 1964 as concert and oratorio soloist when she was still a student. She dedicated herself to Baroque music, and appeared at major international festivals (English Bach Festival, Festival du Marais, Flandern Festival, Holland Festival) and for concerts at the Salle Pleyel (Paris), the Royal Festival Hall (London), Tonhalle (Zürich) and the Wiener Musikvereinssaal. However, she decided then also to turn to a stage career. In 1971, she made her stage debut at the municipal theatre of Heidelberg in the title role of Orpheus by Gluck. In 1975, she became a member of the Bayerische Staatsoper where she caught the attention of Wolfgang Wagner who immediately engaged her for Erda in Richard Wagners Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival 1976 Jahrhundertring (Centenary Ring) in 1976, celebrating the centenary of both the festival and the first performance of the complete cycle, conducted by Pierre Boulez and staged by Patrice Chéreau, recorded and filmed in 1979 and 1980. For her performance of Erda (Rheingold, Siegfried) and First Norn (Götterdämmerung) in this production she was awarded 1982 a Grammy as "a Principal Soloist".

Wenkel appeared at many important opera houses of the world (Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opéra Garnier Paris, Milan Scala, Royal Opera London, as well as Rome, the opera houses of Munich, Stuttgart, Zurich, Geneva, Lisboa, Venice, Prague, among others), concert halls include the Berlin Philharmonie, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome, Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, Kennedy Center Washington and Carnegie Hall New York. During the 1980s, she appeared repeatedly in Marcel Prawy's TV productions Gute Laune mit Musik and Ihre Melodie. Since her concert debut 1964, Wenkel is continuously performing, and she worked with many of the most prominent conductors, e. g. Pierre Boulez, Riccardo Chailly, Colin Davis, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, Marek Janowski, Erich Leinsdorf, Gerd Albrecht, Riccardo Muti, Václav Neumann, Seiji Ozawa, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Gabriel Chmura, Michael Hofstetter, Ulf Schirmer and Klaus Tennstedt. During the past years, she had several noteworthy role debuts, e. g. Fricka, Waltraute at the Graz Opera, Klytämnestra (Richard Strauss' Elektra) at the Budapest Spring Festival and Freiburg, 2002/2003 the title role in Aribert Reimann's Bernarda Albas Haus in the Swiss First Night at the Bern Opera, and 2012 Filipjewna (Eugen Onegin) at the Staatstheater Saarbrücken. Besides the classical-romantic repertoire of operas, oratorio, and Lieder, Wenkel dedicated herself also towards works of contemporary music, working together with Hans Werner Henze, Kryzsztof Penderecki and Aribert Reimann. Hans Werner Henze composed for her the revision of Richard Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder for alto and chamber orchestra, and she performed the premiere under his direction at the Westdeutscher Rundfunk in 1977. In 1999 she performed Magda Schneider in Gerd Kühr's/Peter Turrini's Tod und Teufel world premiere during the Steirischer Herbst in Graz. Wenkel is also renowned for giving recitals all over the world, accompanied e. g. by Geoffrey Parsons, Rudolf Jansen, Phillip Moll, Erik Werba, Wilhelm von Grunelius, Cord Garben, Helge Dorsch, Burkhard Schaeffer and Felix-Jany Renz.

Reviews

Selected recordings