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INGE BORKH |
She was an actress before she became a singer. She also had some training in dance. Needless to say, her training in both performing arts served her well in opera: she became known both for her voice and for her dramatic intensity - the "singing actress" exemplified, years before the term became common usage.
She studied singing in Milan and made her debut in 1940 at the opera in Lucerne as Czipra in Johann Strauss' Der Ziguenerbaron. She remained in Switzerland until 1951, when in Basle she sang a sensational Magda in the first German-language performance of Gian Carlo Menotti's The Consul. It was her key to international stardom, leading to engagements in the world's great opera houses: Vienna, Munich, Berlin, London, New York, and San Francisco where she sang almost all the roles that she could do.
And she triumphed in her portrayals of the most challenging dramatic roles: Verdi's Aida and Lady Macbeth, Puccini's Tosca and Turandot, Beethoven's Fidelio, Cherubini's Medea, Wagner's Elsa, Sieglinde and Senta, Strauss' Ägyptische Helena, Empress and Dyer's Wife, Weber's Euryanthe, Orff's Antigone.... But it was as Strauss' Salome and Elektra that she clinched her claim to fame. None of her performances were captured on film but fortunately some of her great performances were recorded, and both complete works as well as excerpts from a wide array of performances are now available on CD. The complete works include Antigone, Turandot, Iphigenie, and her famed Elektra and Salome.
Inge Borkh retired from opera in 1973 after seven performances of Elektra in Italy, and briefly went back to the theater as an actress of the spoken word. She also for a moment turned chanteuse, doing a unique cabaret act, a souvenir recording of which, Inge Borkh singt ihre Memoiren, is available on Preiser CD. Today, she is a fit and happy octogenarian, and as the photos here show, still very much in possession of the great looks that in her prime have always matched her great voice.