Mourning Soprano Hildegard Behrens

The sudden death last Tuesday of soprano Hildegard Behrens has saddened opera lovers around the world. Ms. Behrens, 72, apparently died of an aneuryism while in Tokyo for a recital and master classes.

Behrens was the Met’s go-to Wagner soprano, and she performed many of the composer’s most demanding roles, such as Brunnhilde (Die Walküre and Götterdammerüng), Senta (Der Fliegender Holländer), and Isolde (Tristan und Isolde), to great acclaim at the world’s major opera houses.

I came late to opera (as did Ms. Behrens, who began her formal studies at age 26, after having earned a law degree) so I just missed Behrens’ heyday in the 80’s, but her Brunnhilde (Levine/Metropolitan Opera Orchestra—DG 1994) is a favorite in my music collection, and I was riveted by her intensity and dramatic commitment in the title role of Strauss’s Elektra.

Critics have said Behrens pushed her instrument too far, and that she damaged her voice by her choice of repertoire. I’d like to think that Ms. Behrens’ late start in opera (her professional debut didn’t occur until 1971, when she was 34) gave her a heightened awareness of the incredible gift she possessed, and its transitory nature. Perhaps this was what made her so willing to take chances with it by singing the roles that interested her rather than those that might have been easier for her to sing.

G-d is a fickle gift-giver, as even the greatest singers come to discover, and the whips and scorns of time will eventually whittle their gifts to mere echoes. Some singers attempt to forestall this inevitability with careful hording of what is known as “vocal capital,” but not Hildegard Behrens. She spent every dime, and if her voice eventually became less than it had been, her willingness to explore the outer reaches of both her vocal capability and the dramatic possibilities of any role made the sacrifice all the more precious to those who had the good fortune to benefit from it.