Karajan artists: Lisa della Casa – Karajan’s Sophie and Marschallin

Regarding the popularity of Karajan’s first “Rosenkavalier” film (directed by Paul Czinner) in 1960 with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, it is not generally known that Karajan chose Lisa della Casa as Marschallin for the prestigious inauguration of the new Salzburg Festspielhaus the same summer. Schwarzkopf, who had sung the part with Karajan for the 1956 studio recording and at La Scala, was snubbed. She threatened not to appear at all at the Salzburg Festival, at least in Karajan’s “Don Giovanni”. Karajan, Schwarzkopf and her husband Walter Legge agreed on her doing the film and the third performance of the series as a preparation. This, on the other hand, was an affront for della Casa, who never returned to the Salzburg Festival after thirteen years of regular involvement. With Karajan she only appeared once more as the Figaro Countess in Vienna in 1962. The part of the Marschallin fell to Schwarzkopf and she kept it up to her last joint performance with Karajan in Salzburg in 1964.

Lisa della Casa, born in Burgdorf Switzerland in 1919, started on her career at the Zurich Opera in 1946 when she performed Zdenka in “Arabella” with the legendary Maria Cebotari in the title role. Cebotari recommended her to the Salzburg Festival for the following year. Richard Strauss, who had witnessed her performance in Zurich, said about her: “The little della Casa will be a fine Arabella one day.” The old master’s prediction came true. Della Casa was the Arabella of her time, on record and almost 200 times on stage – unfortunately not with Karajan, who neglected this wonderful work after having conduced it three times in his early Ulm years.

About the live recording of the inauguration performance in Salzburg Alan Blyth wrote in Gramophone: “In Lisa della Casa, whom Karajan chose in preference to Schwarzkopf (although the latter sang at a later performance), we have the most heartfelt, the most elegiac of his three Marschallins, quite as detailed and subtle as the controversial Schwarzkopf on the famous EMI set, a shade more natural in her responses, and greatly helped by being caught live on stage. Her keen, beautiful tone, immaculate movement between notes and finely accented phrasing are ideal […] This set is a most attractive adjunct to the mainstream alternatives, not least for della Casa.”

Karajan and della Casa collaborated for the first time for two productions at La Scala in January 1952. Della Casa was Marzelline in “Fidelio” and Sophie (not yet the Marschallin) in “Der Rosenkavalier”. She told Lanfranco Rasponi:

“Karajan saw me as Marzelline [in “Fidelio” conducted by Furtwängler] and, if you can believe it, immediately asked me to sing in Tannhäuser with him. He told me I had just the right kind of sexiness to make a splendid goddess of love. […] Can you imagine my taking on Venus, which is sung by both dramatic sopranos and mezzos with an easy upper register? I had the good sense to refuse, but he held a grudge for some time. Eventually he got over it. I sang Marzelline and Sophie with him at La Scala in 1952. Those were the days!”

In the following years, they met regularly for Beethoven’s Ninth and for Brahms’ “German Requiem”.

In 1970, della Casa’s daughter fell ill and – in order to care for her – Lisa della Casa ended her career in 1974. She died in 2012.

—  P.R. Jenkins