Lipp, Wilma
Lipp, Wilma
Lipp, Wilma, esteemed Austrian soprano; b. Vienna, April 26, 1925. She was a student in Vienna of Sindel, Novikova, Bahr- Mildenburg, and Jerger, and in Milan of Dal Monte. In 1943 she made her operatic debut in Vienna as Rosina, and then was a member of the State Opera there from 1945. She also appeared at the Salzburg Festival from 1948. In 1950 she made her debut at Milan’s La Scala as the Queen of the Night, a role she made her own. In 1951 she made her first appearance at London’s Covent Garden singing Gilda. In 1953 she sang the Queen of the Night at her debut at the Paris Opéra. She appeared at the Glyndebourne Festival for the first time in 1957 as Constanze. Her U.S. debut followed in 1962 as Nannetta in Falstaff at the San Francisco Opera. In 1982 she became a prof. of voice at the Salzburg Mozarteum. She was honored as an Austrian Kammersängerin. Lipp was equally adept in coloratura and lyric roles, ranging from the operas of Mozart to Richard Strauss.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire