Karajan artists: Reri Grist – Karajan’s woodbird

When Karajan recorded and staged “Siegfried” at the Easter Festival in 1969, it hadn’t been common in Europe to cast major parts with American singers. Major productions in earlier decades relied on German-speaking or Scandinavian singers for Wagner’s Nordic myths. Karajan worked with Oralia Dominguez from Mexico (Erda) and the US singers Jess Thomas (Siegfried) and Thomas Stewart (Wanderer) in major parts. Another singer from the United States was Reri Grist as the “Voice of the Bird” in act two, a performance praised by critics for her “tender voice” that sounded “enchantingly sweet”.

Grist was one of the first Afro-American singers who built up a career in European opera. She was born in New York in 1932, studied at the Queens College and appeared as Consuela in the first stage production of Leonard Bernstein’s “West Side Story” in 1957. It was also Bernstein who recorded the soprano solo in Mahler’s 4^th symphony with her in 1960. Grist was invited by Stravinsky to sing “Le Rossignol”, she worked with Böhm and Klemperer on Mozart and Strauss operas and appeared at Glyndebourne and Covent Garden. Karajan as managing director of the Vienna State Opera engaged her for 14 performances as Zerlina, Blondchen, Oscar (in Ballo in Maschera) and for her favourite part as Zerbinetta but didn’t work with her himself in that period. Aside from “Siegfried”, her other part in a Karajan production was a visible one – Papagena in “The Magic Flute” for the Salzburg production in 1974. Critics described her interpretation as “naturally charming” and “coquettish and chipper in her acting and singing”. Unlike Karajan, who wasn’t fond of the staging, Grist loved working with the director Giorgio Strehler, as she remarked in an interview in 1996.

Reri Grist was also a dedicated teacher. She now lives in Hamburg, aged 92.

—  P.R. Jenkins