Andreas Trötschel’s personal memories

She sensed that her voice was a divine gift that had to be respected, cherished and developed.
Small roles were soon followed by bigger ones.
Under Böhm’s successor Karl Elmendorff, she sang the part of Aennchen in Der Freischütz with exceptional success – and earned the name “little Trötschel” among the Dresden opera audiences.

She married the opera patron and factory owner Friedrich Hildsberg, whom she had got to know at one of his amateur stints conducting the Staatskapelle.
That is how it might all have continued, had not the war come to destroy Dresden together with the Semperoper.
The inferno also left its mark on the musicians – in my mother’s case, it changed the timbre of her voice: what had been girl-like gave way to the moving lyrical intensity apparent in heavier dramatic parts like Rusalka.

In terms of musical life, the period after the destruction of Dresden was a brief time of artistic freedom, no longer abused by Hitler’s dictatorship and not yet restricted by the “dictatorship of the working class”.
The Tonhalle, the “Large House” and the Kurhaus Bühlau are the unforgettable venues at which the triumvirate made up of conductor Joseph Keilberth, director Heinz Arnold and set designer Karl von Appen staged impressive opera performances.
Their particular penchant for Slavonic operas and the presentation of the “great lovers” like Janácek’s Jenufa and Katya Kabanova or Tatyana in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin gave her a special aura.

Scenes from Felsenstein’s production of Jacques Offenbach’s operetta Orpheus in the Underworld with Elfride Trötschel
© Photo: Aus dem privaten Künstleralbum von Elfride Trötschel

A special artistic bond developed between her and the conductor Joseph Keilberth, as is repeatedly indicated in the recently published biography by Thomas Keilberth.

Keilberth was not the only one who revered her voice. Walter Felsenstein, a director of the new generation, persuaded her to join the Komische Oper company he had formed in East Berlin, where he hoped to win artistic emancipation from the Socialist state. She owed the development of her strikingly expressive acting ability to that great director.

The Berliner Zeitung reported:
“Elfride Trötschel has been the darling of Dresden for years, and since reviewers describe her voice as one of the most beautiful, it is understandable that the artist is closely guarded by the Dresden Staatsoper – but an excellent artistic director like Felsenstein would not be worth his salt if he could not somewhat slacken even an unshakeable tie.
He has managed to bring Trötschel to Berlin to sing Eurydice in Offenbach’s ‘Orpheus in the Underworld’.”

Because politics increasingly determined the programme in East Germany from the early fifties onwards and the names of great musicians and conductors were placed on blacklists, Elfride Trötschel finally switched to the Städtische Oper in West Berlin in 1953, after having already performed and made successful disc recordings in the West.

In the few years that remained, her reputation as a lyric soprano spread throughout Europe:
Edinburgh, the Glyndebourne Festival, Hamburg, Munich, Bordeaux, Vienna, Rome and Salzburg all presented her with interesting work, and nothing seemed to be too much for her.

She reports in a letter that she sang three demanding parts in only four days at the Vienna State Opera: Micaéla in Bizet’s Carmen, Pamina in Mozart’s Magic Flute and Evchen in Wagner’s Mastersingers of Nuremberg!

And, whenever her schedule permitted, there were concerts as well:
Das Unaufhörliche by Paul Hindemith, Von Deutscher Seele by Hans Pfitzner, Le roi David by Arthur Honegger, Der Wein by Alban Berg, Die Chinesische Flöte by Ernst Toch and three works by Carl Orff – Carmina Burana, Trionfo di Afrodite and Catulli carmina – all conducted by the composers themselves or by Ferenc Fricsay, whose son András has now made a name for himself as a director.

She maintained the youthful elasticity of lyrical voice through constant and deep involvement with the classical and modern lieder repertoire, and the emotional message of those musical gems is brought out to perfection by her effortless singing, even in the gentlest pianissimo.

I heard those lieder so often at home as a child that, much to the surprise of my mother, I began singing along with them. There are recordings of those intimate house concerts, made by a friend of the family who had what was then an ultramodern commercial tape recorder.

In a RIAS Interview she respondet to the Question:
“You not only act on the stage in costume and make-up, but also enjoy the same success in the concert hall and give lieder recitals. The most essential difference between song and aria?
Alfresco – etching.
The song is the etching?
Yes, the song!
Strictly circumscribed, concise, two pages long. Now it is the situation you create which enchants people. Very apt and succinct. Always me alone and without trappings. Nothing else. Only me. They listen to me. They get to know me. I have not yet succeeded in that.
But I hope, I hope …

Franz Schubert: Vier Gesänge aus ‘Wilhelm Meister’, D 877