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Stories   >   Sarah Traubel demonstrates perfect technique and dramatic aplomb on 'Arias for Josepha' / Opera Lounge

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Sarah Traubel demonstrates perfect technique and dramatic aplomb on 'Arias for Josepha' / Opera Lounge

Posted: May 12, 2020

With special interest one registers a new publication with SONY Classical with the young German soprano Sarah Traubel (S80496C). Of course, the opera friend immediately thinks of the famous Helen Traubel with this name - and this name relationship is actually not accidental. The singer, born in Mannheim, is the great niece of the American soprano legend and the conductor Günter Wand. For her debut album entitled Arias for Josepha , which was created in Prague in August 2019, she has compiled a selection of arias that Mozart and other, less known composers for a coloratura diva of the time, Josepha Hofer, Have written. A connection to Sarah Traubel is also established here, because Hofer was born in 1758 in Zell im Wiesental under the name Weber and also grew up in Mannheim. From there she went to Munich and Vienna, was Mozart's sister-in-law and his first queen of the night in the Magic Flute . She sang the part from its premiere in 1791 to 1801, four years later she retired from the stage.

The Queen's two arias can of course also be found in the CD program, but in reverse order. The "revenge" aria from the second sounds first and, in addition to the brilliant exposed location and perfect technique of Sarah Traubel, also demonstrates her dramatic aplomb. The aria from Act 1, "O zittre nicht", follows afterwards. In the expression of the recitative it does not have the slyness of famous predecessors, but in the aria it does have the necessary vigorous emphasis and the brilliance in the coloratura runs. The Queen of the Night also appears in another opera because Peter von Winter composed the continuation of the Magic Flute on a libretto by Schikaneder The Labyrinth or The Struggle with the Elements, premiered in 1798 with the Hofer as queen. In their pathetic aria "Ha! Good luck to me! Hear it, nature, " Traubel even lets hysterically excited sounds and garish coloraturas be heard, which is entirely committed to expression. - Bernd Hoppe

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