Marita Napier

Marita Napier (née Jacobs; 16 February 1939 – 10 April 2004) was a South African operatic soprano, known internationally as a performer of music by Strauss and Wagner.

Early life and education Marita Jacobs

Being impressed by a singer's performance at a concert, Napier inquired who her teacher was. Napier sent him an audition tape and he immediately accepted her as a student. She saved up for two years while working in an office to be able to go to Germany, which she did in 1965 with a donation from the Ernest Oppenheimer Trust Fund.

Napier's first European breakthrough was when she sang the soprano part in Orff's Carmina Burana in Dijon, France. In October 1974 she made her Covent Garden debut as Sieglinde in Die Walküre and subsequently returned there to sing as Leonore in Fidelio and Ariadne in Strauß' Ariadne auf Naxos She made her debut at the Wiener Staatsoper as Leonore in Il Trovatore in 1975 and returned for performances of Ariadne auf Naxos, Elsa in Lohengrin, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, Fidelio, Chrysothemis in Elektra, Sieglinde in Die Walküre, and Der Fliegende Holländer

U.S. Napier's first appearance in the U.S. was in 1972 as Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre for the San Francisco Opera, Conductor Seiji Ozawa offered her to perform in Mahler's Eighth Symphony which she learnt within four days. Ozawa recommended her to Wolfgang Sawallisch as Sieglinde for a performance at La Scala in Milan. In the late seventies in San Francisco she was named "Voice of America" for her portrayal of Senta in Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer.

Napier made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera on 22 September 1986 as Helmwige in Die Walküre. In 1992 she appeared as Leonora in Verdi's Il trovatore in Cape Town and in 1995 as Giulietta in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann in Pretoria. but they rarely performed together before his retirement a few years later. Napier eventually settled in Cape Town where she gave singing lessons and sang in local opera productions.

Napier died in Cape Town in 2004 from cancer.

Operatic repertoire Napier gained her greatest fame as a performer of Strauss and Wagner music. Over the years, she performed among others in:

Beethoven: Fidelio and Leonore: Leonore Tosca: Tosca La Bohéme: Mimi Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos: Ariadne She sang at major opera festivals in Europe – including Bayreuth, Aix-en-Provence, Verona, Munich, Vienna and Florence, as well as in leading opera houses including Munich, Milan, Paris, Barcelona, Buenos Aires. Thomas Willis from Chicago Tribune wrote about Marita Napier's American debut in the production of Götterdämmerung: “She has a voice with the lyric flexibility for Gutrune and Sieglinde and knows how to use it”.

Awards and honors

1989 Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording (with the rest of the cast): Richard Wagner's Die Walküre, with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra A Medal of Honor from the South African Academy for Science and the Arts. A special award at the KKNK in 2002.