“Whoever has heard Elisabeth Grummer singing cannot forget the way this lovely voice, at once ethereal and yet full sounding, effortlessly flows along,” wrote Lanfranco...

“Whoever has heard Elisabeth Grummer singing cannot forget the way this lovely voice, at once ethereal and yet full sounding, effortlessly flows along,” wrote Lanfranco Rasponi. “No other has ever brought such intimate spirituality and such romantic sensitivity into music.” This characterization, referring to the singer’s major opera roles, applies equally to her concert appearances and song recitals. Elisabeth Grummer was born in 1911 and grew up in Meiningen, where she trained as an actress and appeared in classical roles at the theater. After her marriage, she put an end to her acting career and moved to Aachen, where her husband worked as concert-master at the opera. She took voice lessons and was discovered by Herbert von Karajan, the young General Music Director at the opera at the time, who offered her a role as a flower girl in Parsifal in 1941. More roles followed, engagements in Duisburg and Prague and finally at the Stadtische Oper Berlin in 1946, where she evolved into an excellent singer of lyrical piano parts. Until 1961 she appeared each year at the Bayreuth Festival. She made guest appearances at all the major opera houses in the world, but remained true to the Berlin Opera unti her farewell to the stage in 1972. She taught at the Berlin music school and held master courses in Paris and Salzburg. Compared to Elisabeth Grummer’s rank as a singer, her recordings are shamefully few in number, giving these radio recordings a special documentary significance.