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The American-German soprano and voice teacher, Judith Beckmann, was the daughter of an opera singer and a pianist. She got her musical training at the University of Southern California and at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara. Among her teachers were Lotte Lehmann, and she was also pupil of her father, the singer and pedagogue Harold Reed. In 1961 she won a singing competition in San Francisco and came with a Fulbright scholarship to Germany, where she became pupil of Henny Wolff in Hamburg and Franziska Martienssen Lohmann in Düsseldorf.
Judith Beckmann made her stage debut in 1962 at the National Theatre of Braunschweig as Fiordiligi in W.A. Mozart's Così fan tutte. This launched a great career of the artist at the prominent German stages, primarily at the State Operas of Munich and Stuttgart, in Cologne, Kassel, Hannover, Frankfurt a.M., Mannheim, Dortmund, and at the German Opera House Berlin. From 1964 she was a member of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Düsseldorf-Duisburg, and from 1967 of the State Opera of Hamburg. Since 1971 she was connected to the State Opera of Vienna.
In 1969 Judith Beckmann could be heard at the Festival of Schwetzingen in the premiere of the opera Das Märchen von der schönen Lilie by G. Klebe. She sang also as a guest in Brussels, Nancy, Geneva, Venice, with the Maggio Musicale di Florenz, at the Covent Garden Opera of London, and at the Opera House of San Francisco. In 1984 she sang in Cologne Eva in Meistersinger, in 1988 at the State Opera of Munich the title part in Arabella by R. Strauss and, likewise in 1988, at the Opera House of Dortmund Ariadne in Ariadne auf Naxos. In 1986 she appeared at the Teatro Regio of Turin as Marschallin in Rosenkavalier, in 1989 she appeared again as a guest at the Munich Opera, in 1990 at the Théâtre de la Monnaie Brussels and at the National Theatre Hannover.
Judith Beckmann's stage repertoire covered variety of works, in particular from the lyric specialist area. She was a celebrated concert soprano, particularly J.S. Bach interpreter. She took training activity at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. She was also an acclaimed voice teacher. Among the singers who studied with her and/or attended her master-classes: Simone Alex (Counter-tenor), Christine Brenk (Soprano), Margit Diefenthal (Mezzo-soprano), Hanna Eittinger (Soprano), Stefanie Fels (Soprano), Dorothee Fries (Soprano), Uta Grunewald (Mezzo-soprano), Irene Hammann (Soprano), Christiane Iven (Mezzo-soprano/Contralto), Annette Jahns (Mezzo-soprano/Contralto), Anja-Maria Kaftan (Soprano), Anke Krabbe (Soprano), Heike Maria Kumlin (Soprano), Dorothee Labusch (Mezzo-soprano), Katharina Leyhe (Soprano), Angela Lösch (Mezzo-soprano), Heidrun Luchterhandt (Soprano), Mareike Morr (Mezzo-soprano), Ilse-Christine Otto (Soprano), Gudrun Pelker (Mezzo-soprano), Katja Pieweck (Mezzo-soprano), Andrea Reuter (Soprano), Sabine Ritterbusch (Soprano), Letizia Scherrer (Soprano), Anne-Carolyn Schlüter (Mezzo-soprano), Antje Siefert (Mezzo-soprano), Daniela Sindram (Soprano) Kerstin Steube-König (Soprano), Marietta Zumbült (Soprano).*** She was married with the conductor Irvin Beckmann. Their daughter is the conductor Catherine Rückwardt.
Recordings: Claudius-Verlag (Bach Cantatas). |
