Teresa Zylis-Gara has creamy lyricism in Mahler's 4th Symphony

THE SONGBIRD: Polish lyric soprano Teresa Zylis-Gara (1930 - 2021) was born in Landwarów, studied in Łódź with coloratura soprano Olga Olgina, and won first prize in the Warsaw vocal competition in 1954. She made her operatic debut in Krakow as Moniuszko's Halka in 1956. Her international reputation began blossoming when she sang Octavian at Glyndebourne in 1965, and her debut at The Met came in 1970 as Donna Elvira. She sang 233 performances there over 15 seasons: Mozart's Pamina, Countess Almaviva, and Fiordiligi; Verdi's Amelia, Desdemona, Leonora, and Violetta; Puccini's Butterfly, Manon, Tosca, Mimi, Suor Angelica, and Liu; Wagner's Elisabeth and Elsa; and Marguerite, Octavian, Tatiana, and Adriana Lecouvreur. Zylis-Gara made many guest appearances in leading venues in Amsterdam, Berlin, Vienna, London, Milan, Warsaw, Buenos Aires, Madrid, and Moscow. Here is a rare mid-career concert that I recorded from a recent rebroadcast of radio archives.
THE MUSIC: Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 4 in G-major was completed right at the turn of the last century in 1900 and premiered in Munich in 1901. The work is pastoral in tone and with ligher orchestration that his previous symphonies. There are four movements, with the final movement featuring a soprano vocalist in a setting of an early song by Mahler, which he incorporated into the symphony. This final vocal movement, titled "Das himmlische Leben," does not contain any coloratura, but is often cast with a light lyric soprano to best convey the child-like quality found in the words and melody.

[@sirdicaudore]

I had the chance to hear her live many times! A very fine artist with a gorgeous voice!