Lucia Popp made her stage debut as a singer at age 23 at the Bratislava Opera singing Queen of the Night in Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte”. In 1963 Herbert von Karajan heard her sing and engaged her on the spot to sing with the Vienna State Opera company. Her first appearances were so successful that before long she was offered a three-year contract with the Vienna State Opera.
She started her engagement there in 1963, and became famous overnight singing the Queen of the Night, a role in which she was considered unsurpassed. In 1963 she sang also Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro at the same opera hgouse.
The audience at La Scala in Milan discovered her in 1976 in the role of Sophie in Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, conducted by Carlos Kleiber. In 1983 she performed for the first time the title role in Arabella under the baton of Wolfgang Sawallisch. She created a sensation in her first appearance as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier in 1985, and then had a triumphant success in the role of the Countess in Capriccio in Salzburg in 1987.
Lucia Popp died in 1993.
Here is Ms. Popp, singing the music of Mozart:
