Leonie Rysanek

Acting

Leonie Rysanek

Born — Died

1926-11-14 — 1998-03-07

Place of birth

Wien, Austria

Known for

Acting

Credits

7 titles

Leopoldine Rysanek (14 November 1926 – 7 March 1998) was an Austrian dramatic soprano. Rysanek was born in Vienna and made her operatic debut in 1949 in Innsbruck. In 1951 the Bayreuth Festival reopened and the new leader Wieland Wagner asked her to sing Sieglinde in Die Walküre. He was convinced that her unique, young and beautiful voice, combined with her rare acting abilities, would create a sensation. She became a star overnight, and the role of Sieglinde followed her for the rest of her career. Her final performance was at the Salzburg Festival in August 1996, as Klytämnestra in Elektra by Richard Strauss. Her Metropolitan Opera debut came in 1959 as Lady Macbeth in Verdi's Macbeth, r…

Known for

Film credits

1980s · 4 titles

Lohengrin - Metropolitan Opera poster
8.0

Wagner’s Romantic opera demands singing actors who can truly inhabit their parts, and that’s just what we have here. Is it possible for a Knight of the Holy Grail to look more enticing than Peter Hofmann? No wonder Elsa (Eva Marton) falls in love at first sight. Marton’s heroine is innocent, but she is also a passionate, real-life young woman—which is good, because Leonie Rysanek is positively demented as Ortrud, the sorceress who accuses Elsa and Lohengrin of using magic. With James Levine’s superb conducting, the orchestra and chorus are similarly magical.

Lohengrin - Metropolitan Opera

1986

Elektra poster
4.0

The Metropolitan Opera live production of Richard Strauss's opera Elektra on February 16, 1980

Elektra

1980

Elektra poster
6.8

Strauss's opera adapted to the screen by Gotz Friedrich.

Elektra

1981

Strauss: Elektra poster
NR

It's hard to imagine confirmed Straussians not wanting this starry Metropolitan Opera performance of Elektra. Strauss and his librettist, Hugo von Hofmannstahl, transformed Sophocles' take on Homer's tale into a harrowing opera noir. Elektra lives for one reason, to kill her mother, Klytämnestra, and her stepfather, Aegisth, the murderers of her father, Agamemnon. In contrast to Elektra's vengeful obsession, her sister Chrysothemis desires to get on with life. When their long-missing brother, Orestes, returns to do the deed, Elektra celebrates with a dance of death and, her sole purpose in life fulfilled, dies. Strauss joined the hermetic plot to music of the utmost opulence, violent and yearning by turns, evoking the cardinal principles of Greek tragedy - pity and terror.

Strauss: Elektra

1980

Series credits