Irmgard Seefried was a distinguished German soprano who sang opera, sacred music, and lieder. Maria Theresia Irmgard Seefried was born in, near Mindelheim, Bavaria, Germany, the daughter of educated Austrian-born parents. She studied at Augsburg University before making her debut in Aachen as the priestess in Verdi's Aida in 1940. She began to sing leading parts in 1942. From then on, she remained with the State Opera until her retirement in 1976. She sang at the Salzburg Festival every year from 1946 to 1964 in operas, concerts and recitals. She appeared at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in London from 1947 to 1949, and also La Scala in Milan, the Edinburgh Festival, etc. She made her Metropolitan Opera in New York City debut in November 1953 as Susanna in Mozart's Nozze di Figaro and appeared there for only one season, in five performances, all as Susanna. One of the outstanding singers to emerge immediately after the Second World War, she was noted for her Mozart and Richard Strauss roles. But she also sang in other composers' operas; the title role in Puccini's Madama Butterfly, Marie in Alban Berg's Wozzeck, Eva in Meistersinger, Blanche in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites, and the title role in Janáček's Káťa Kabanová. She was also a noted lieder singer, and a number of her Salzburg Festival recitals were recorded. She left many recordings of oratorio and sacred music by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Brahms, Fauré, Beethoven, Dvořák, Verdi and Stravinsky. Although she was a high soprano, she performed, and recorded, both the trouser roles of the Composer and Octavian in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos and Der Rosenkavalier, respectively. These roles are usually associated with weightier voices, and today are usually sung by mezzo-sopranos. She often sang with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, who said in interview that Seefried was naturally able to achieve results effortlessly which other singers, including Schwarzkopf herself, had to work hard to produce. She can be seen singing Mahler on a DVD from EMI, with Schwarzkopf and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. She was married to Austrian violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan, one of the concertmasters of the Vienna Philharmonic, from 1948 until her death. They had three daughters, one of whom is actress . After retirement, she taught students at the Vienna Academy of Music and Salzburg Mozarteum. She died at 69 in Vienna in 1988.
