Inge Borkh

Inge Borkh (born Ingeborg Simon, 26 May 1921 (Several sources give 1917 as the birth year, but Borkh was insistent that the year was 1921: "One dictionary got it wrong at the beginning, and then everyone printed the mistake.) It made my poor mother crazy." Her father, a diplomat, was Jewish. The family left Germany in 1933 and moved to Austria. She trained to be an actress at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna She appeared at the Burgtheater in Vienna while still studying. After this Borkh performed at major opera houses in Europe, in Hamburg, Stuttgart, Barcelona, Lisbon, London, Milan and Naples, among others. Her association with San Francisco gave her particular pleasure: "I sang almost everything there that I could do. Even Lady Macbeth and Turandot. I wasn't typecast, as I was in other places. Here I even committed the crime of portraying the gentle Elsa in Lohengrin. I went home with my husband afterwards and wept. It was grisly. It was awful. I sang terribly. Yet a critic wrote that it was fabulous, that a new Flagstad had been found. I never attempted that again." New roles in 1962 included appearances in Louise Talma's The Alcestiad at the Frankfurt Opera and in the premiere of Josef Tal's Ashmedai at the Hamburg State Opera in 1971,

In a retrospective study of her career published in Opera News in 2001, the critic Martin Bernheimer wrote:

Even when portraying monstrous heroism, lust or misery, she somehow managed to exude the quality we used to label femininity, not to mention generosity and an innate humanity. One sensed a certain frailty beneath her bravado. Emotional intensity was her specialty, yet she never confused it with hysteria. Exaggeration was not her style. And her voice? It's hard to remember that wonderful voice without recalling her face. Both were vibrant, luminous, sensuous. Both were used aggressively yet gracefully in pursuit of honest communication. Borkh did not deal in clichés. Cherubini's Médée conducted by Vittorio Gui, Die Frau ohne Schatten in 1963, conducted by Joseph Keilberth, and the 1952 performances from the Bayreuth Festival, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, also conducted by Keilberth. The complete Turandot was recorded for Decca, conducted by Alberto Erede, alongside Mario del Monaco, Renata Tebaldi and Nicola Zaccaria.

Borkh can be heard on CD performing Scenes from Elektra and Salome, conducted by Reiner in the 1950s (RCA Victor 09026 68636-2). For Decca she recorded an Operatic Recital in which she sang mostly arias from Italian operas. She took part in a 1961 recording of Beethoven's symphonies with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by René Leibowitz, performing the soprano solo in the Ninth alongside Ruth Siewert, Richard Lewis and Ludwig Weber. In 1965 she recorded the role of Tove in Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder, conducted by Rafael Kubelík, for Deutsche Grammophon.

Personal life Borkh was married twice; her second husband was the baritone (1906–1991). (It amused Borkh that the Met "unwittingly acquired another Frau Welitsch with seven veils" as Salome.) Her husband was not related to her predecessor in the role, Ljuba Welitsch.