Marita Napier

The internationally acclaimed South African Soprano Marita Napier has died in Cape Town, South Africa.



Ms. Napier died on April 10, 2004 after having fought cancer for the past 3 ½ years.



MARITA NAPIER has established herself internationally as an exponent of the music of Wagner and Richard Strauss, having sung numerous works by these composers throughout the world. Born in Johannesburg, she is one of few South African born opera singers who have achieved opera's Grand Slam, having sung lead roles at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Vienna State Opera, La Scala in Milan and Covent Garden in London.



Ms Napier has performed 19 productions of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelugen at Covent Garden, La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera and in San Francisco, Bayreuth, Vienna and all major opera houses in Europe.



She received the Grammy Award for the Metropolitan recording of Die Walküre. Ms Napier is a world-renowned interpreter of Chrysothemis in Elektra (on occasion opposite Birgit Nilsson in the title role) in San Francisco, Belgrade, Basle and Stuttgart. One of her greatest achievements was performing at the Bayreuth Festival, whilst she was voted 'Voice of America' for her Senta in Der fliegende Holländer in San Francisco in the late Seventies. She holds the distinction of singing for one of the biggest television audiences in the world ever when she gave a concert in Beijing on the Met tour to China. She has sung under conductors such as Levine, Mehta, Sawallisch and Colin Davis.



She started her association with Cape Town Opera in 1976 when she returned for the first time to South Africa to sing Senta in Der fliegende Holländer, after which she sang Leonore in Fidelio, Leonora in La Forza Del Destino, Brünnhilde in Die Walküre, Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, Abigaille in Nabucco, Lady Macbeth in Verdi's Macbeth, Princess Turandot in Turandot and Bessie in Roelof Temmingh's Sacred Bones at the NICO.



She has many recordings to her credit, among others Beethoven's Choral Symphony, under Seiji Ozawa Schönberg's Gurrelieder under Pierre Boulez as well as Das Rheingold , Die Walküre and Kurt Weill's Der Zar Lasst sich Photographieren. She has also recorded the Mother in Hänsel und Gretel with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Horst Stein.