Around the Music Festival

Maria Ewing, a soprano and mezzo-soprano singer who was active in a well-known Operahouse, died on January 9 in her hometown of Detroit, USA. She was 71 years old. She has been married to director Peter Hall for a time, and their daughter is Hollywood actress Rebecca Hall.

Ewing was born in Detroit in 1950. His father is a Sioux Native American and his mother is Dutch. She studied her vocal music in Cleveland and New York, and she made her singer debut at the Ravinia Festival in 1973.

Her metropolitan opera debut was in 1976, when she was found by music director James Levine and sang the cherubino of Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro”. Since then, she has appeared 96 times until 1997 in Berg’s “Wozzeck”.

In 1978, he performed at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in England. She met the hall there and they got married in 1982.

Until the 1990 divorce, the couple co-starred in “Carmen” and “The Marriage of Figaro”. In 1988, she danced “Dance of the Seven Veils” all-nude at the Royal Opera’s “Salome”, which was broadcast and attracted a lot of attention.

Her first stage in Europe is the role of Melisand in Debussy’s Opera “Pelléas et Melisand” at Teatro alla Scala. She was also good at other roles such as Carmen, Drabella, Salome and Marie.

In 1992 she recorded Shostakovich’s“Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” with the Opéra national de Paris conducted by Myung-Whun Chung. In it, she sang the role of Katerina Izmailova.

She retired from the opera stage in 1997. There are many recordings left by her, including Karl Böhm’s “The Marriage of Figaro”, Bernard Haitink’s “Don Giovanni”, and Claudio Abbado’s “Pelléas et Melisand”. There is also Mozart’s Requiem conducted by Leonard Bernstein.

Photo：Royal Opera House　/　Clive Barda