Gundula Janowitz

Austrian lyric soprano

Gundula Janowitz (born 2 August 1937) is an Austrian lyric soprano singer of operas, oratorios, lieder, and concerts. She is one of the most renowned opera singers of the 20th century and was pre eminent in the 1960s and 1970s.

Janowitz was born in Berlin, but grew up in Graz, Austria, where she became a naturalised Austrian. She studied at the Graz Conservatory in Austria,

Janowitz appeared on many of the great stages of the world, including the Glyndebourne Festival Opera, the Bayreuth Festival, the Salzburg Easter Festival, the Metropolitan Opera, the Paris Opera, La Scala and the Royal Opera House. In 1980, she sang the part of the Countess in a now legendary new production of The Marriage of Figaro (with Georg Solti as conductor, Giorgio Strehler as director and Ezio Frigerio as set designer). Her recording of Schubert's Lieder for female voice has been twice awarded Germany's Deutscher Schallplattenpreis. Janowitz's farewell to the operatic stage was on 18 May 1990, at the Vienna State Opera in the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos (with Heinrich Hollreiser as conductor, and Filippo Sanjust [de] as director and designer). She kept singing Lieder recitals until 1997, when she completely retired from performing. As well as being an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera and of the Academy of Music in Graz, she was appointed an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London in 2000.

Janowitz's voice is recognizable by its pure, "creamy" tone, and rapid vibrato. Like her predecessor Maria Stader, who had a similar timbre to hers, and like her contemporary, Elizabeth Harwood, Janowitz mastered first and foremost the high and middle register and lyrical emotional expression. Despite her comparatively weak sound projection, she occasionally performed in dramatic roles (Sieglinde, Leonore, Elsa) or comic roles (Marzelline, Rosalinde), but she was most highly regarded as Fiordiligi, Countess Rosina Almaviva, Pamina, Agathe, Arabella, Ariadne, Countess Madeleine, and in sacred music (the Angel Gabriel, The Creation). With a few exceptions, she avoided foreign language roles (although recordings exist of her singing Don Carlos and Verdi's Requiem and all three Mozart/DaPonte operas in Italian). An excerpt of her portrayal of the Figaro Countess in the duettino "Canzonetta sull'aria" with Swiss soprano Edith Mathis features prominently in the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption.