It was a brave decision for Janis Martin, who has died at the age of 75, to cross the tracks mid-career from mezzo-soprano to soprano. There were those who doubted its wisdom, but as Martin herself observed some years later: “It was a gradual, natural thing. I didn’t just decide; it happened to me.” And it was a move that allowed her to take a number of roles for which she was both temperamentally and vocally suited, including Marie in Berg’s Wozzeck, Tosca, the Dyer’s Wife in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten and The Woman in Schoenberg’s Erwartung. It was for her Wagner singing, however, that she was best known, and she took nine different roles at the Bayreuth festival, appearing each year from 1968 to 1973 as Magdalene, Fricka, Eva, Second Norn, Gutrune, Kundry, Freia and Sieglinde, returning in 1989 as Brünnhilde and again in 1995-97, in Parsifal, as Kundry.
By a remarkable coincidence, she died on the same day as Irene Dalis, another Californian mezzo-soprano who also came to prominence at the San Francisco Opera in the 1960s. The two singers appeared together on a number of occasions. With her finely chiselled features and considerable acting ability, Martin cut an alluring figure on the stage, despite her shortness: her “sexy, gleaming” Tosca, in the words of Opera magazine, and seductive Kundry were particularly noted in this regard.
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