Altmeyer, Jeannine (Theresa)
Altmeyer, Jeannine (Theresa)
Altmeyer, Jeannine (Theresa), American soprano; b. La Habra, Calif., May 2, 1948. She received instruction from Martial Singher and Lotte Lehmann in Santa Barbara, Calif.; later took courses at the Salzburg Mozarteum. She made her operatic debut as the Heavenly Voice in Don Carlos at the Metropolitan Opera (N.Y., Sept. 25, 1971); then sang Freia in Das Rheingold at the Chicago Lyric Opera (1972), in Salzburg (1973), and at London’s Covent Garden (1975). From 1975 to 1979 she was a member of the Wurttemberg State Theater in Stuttgart; subsequently appeared in Bayreuth (1979), Paris (1987), Zürich (1989), and Milan (1990). After appearing as Wagner’s Venus at the Metropolitan Opera in 1997, she was engaged as Brünnhilde in the Ring cycle in Amsterdam in 1998–99. She is notably successful in Wagnerian roles, including Elisabeth, Gutrune, Eva, Brünnhilde, Elsa, and Sieglinde.
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire