Albums by Chorus of the Vienna State Opera
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Artist Biography
For more than three decades after WWII, international choral singing was measured against benchmark standards set by the Chorus of the Vienna State Opera (Wiener Staatsopernchor). The richness and warmth of their sound is backed up by the precision and assurance of their collective music-making, and the results have since been preserved by a 92-strong, full-time professional membership selected by a rigorous audition process. The choir’s enduring artistic qualities and esprit de corps have grown from their weekly appearances in productions at the Vienna State Opera and regular concerts away from the opera house, notably at the Salzburg Festival and on tour to the world’s leading classical music venues. Yet it was in the recording studio that the choir established its unrivaled international reputation. During the 1950s and ’60s, the Vienna State Opera Choir contributed to some of the finest complete opera recordings in the catalog, including Johann Strauss II’s Die Fledermaus under Clemens Krauss (1950), Wagner’s Die Meistersinger under Hans Knappertsbusch (1951), Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier under Erich Kleiber (1954), and Georg Solti’s epoch-defining stereo set of Wagner’s Ring cycle (1958-65). While the choir’s origins predate the Vienna State Opera’s move in 1869 to an ornate new theater on the city’s Ringstrasse, its modern development began in 1927 with the creation of the Konzertvereinigung Wiener Staatsopernchor. The Konzertvereinigung, or Concert Association, granted the choir independence beyond the opera house, an arrangement comparable to that pioneered by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra since the early 1840s. Franz Schalk, its first concert director, was succeeded by Clemens Krauss and, among others, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm, and Claudio Abbado.
Hometown
Vienna, Austria
Genre
Classical
