Teresa Stich-Randall

Teresa Stich-Randall was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, in December 1927 and studied at the Hartt College of Music and Columbia University. She came to public attention in 1952 with her recording of the role of Nannetta in Toscanini’s *Falstaff* with the NBC Symphony — a performance that established her as a notable Mozart and Verdi lyric coloratura soprano while she was still in her twenties.

She moved to Europe in 1953 and joined the Vienna State Opera ensemble in 1955 — the company in which she remained for the next quarter century. Her central repertoire was the Mozart soubrette and lyric soprano parts (Susanna, Pamina, Donna Anna), the bel canto coloratura roles (Violetta, Rosina, Gilda), and the Strauss heroines (Sophie in *Der Rosenkavalier*, Zdenka in *Arabella*, and the Composer in *Ariadne auf Naxos*). She sang regularly at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the Salzburg Festival, the Glyndebourne Festival, the Metropolitan Opera (from 1961), Covent Garden and La Scala. Her precise musicianship, classical control and command of the difficult coloratura tessitura made her a particularly valued partner for the major conductors of the post-war Mozart revival — Karajan, Furtwängler, Walter, Krips.

Stich-Randall was the first American singer to be made an *Österreichische Kammersängerin* — Austrian Court Singer — in 1962. She retired from staged opera in 1980 and died in Vienna in July 2007. Music Preserved’s archive includes a range of her Mozart, Strauss and bel canto work.