Holm, Renate

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Holm, Renate

Holm, Renate, German soprano; b. Berlin, Aug. 10, 1931. After winning 1st prize in a vocal competition sponsored at the RIAS in Berlin in 1952, she embarked upon a career as a pop singer; she also pursued vocal training with Maria Ivogün in Vienna. In 1958 she made her debut in Oscar Straus’s Ein Walzertraum at the Vienna Volksoper, where she subsequently sang with fine success. In 1961 she joined the Vienna State Opera. Her guest engagements took her to the Salzburg Festival, Covent Garden in London, the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, and the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. She was notably successful as Blondchen, Papagena, Rosina inII Barbiere di Siviglia, Marie in Zar und Zimmermann, and Musetta, as well as in Viennese operettas. She was the author of Ein Leben nach Spielplan: Stationen einer ungewöhnlichen Karriere (Berlin, 1991).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire