Hillebrecht, Hildegard

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Hillebrecht, Hildegard

Hillebrecht, Hildegard, German soprano; b. Hannover, Nov. 26, 1927. She made her operatic debut as Leonora in II Trovatore in Freiburg im Breisgau (1951); then sang in Zürich (1952–54), Düsseldorf (1954–59), Cologne (1956–61), Munich (from 1961), and again in Zürich (from 1972). She also made guest appearances in Vienna, Hamburg, Berlin, Salzburg, Paris, and Rome. In 1967 she made her Covent Garden debut in London as the Empress in Die Frau ohne Schatten; on Nov. 8, 1968, she made her Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Sieglinde in Die Walküre. She was best known for her roles in operas by Mozart, Wagner, Puccini, Strauss, and Verdi. She also sang in the premiere of Dallapiccola’s Ulisse in Berlin (1968).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire