Gundula Janowitz - Career

Career

Janowitz grew up in Graz, Austria, where she became a naturalised Austrian. She studied at the Graz Conservatory in Austria, and had already begun to sing at the highest level by the end of the 1950s (Haydn's The Creation, with Herbert von Karajan in 1960). In 1959, Karajan engaged her as Barbarina in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro at the Vienna State Opera, of which she became a permanent member in 1962. In the 1960s and 1970s, she became one of the most popular singers in her field internationally and she developed a comprehensive and widely-followed discography of works ranging from Johann Sebastian Bach to Richard Strauss, in cooperation with the most prominent conductors (her mentor at times, Karajan, as well as Otto Klemperer, Eugen Jochum, Leonard Bernstein, Rafael Kubelík, Karl Böhm, Georg Solti, Carlos Kleiber, etc.)

One of the emphases of Janowitz's work was the development of song recitals, which she gave several times at the Salzburg Festivals. Following her vocal career, she was active as a vocal teacher. In 1990, she temporarily took over the position of Opera Director in Graz.

In 1978, Gundula Janowitz was awarded the Joseph Marx Music Prize of the state of Styria, Austria, named for the composer, Joseph Marx.

Janowitz appeared on many of the great stages of the world, including Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Salzburg Easter Festivals, the Metropolitan Opera, the Paris Opéra, the Royal Opera House. She was made a Kammersängerin in 1970. In 1973, she sang the part of the Countess in a now legendary new production of Le nozze di Figaro (with Georg Solti as conductor, Giorgio Strehler as director and Ezio Frigerio as set designer).

Her opera farewell was on May 18th, 1990, at the Vienna State Opera in the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos (with Heinrich Hollreiser as conductor, and Filippo Sanjust as director and designer). Janowitz kept singing Lied recitals until 1997, when she completely retired from the stage.