Wilma Lipp

Who is Wilma Lipp?

Wilma Lipp is an Austrian operatic soprano, particularly associated with Mozart roles, especially Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail and the Queen of the Night in The Magic Flute.

Lipp possessed a pure, supple high-soprano voice with an accurate coloratura technique and a so-called "white" tone. Her career, which began in soubrette and high coloratura roles, later progressed to more lyrical ones such as Ilia, Countess Almaviva, Pamina, Eva, Musetta, Martha, Violetta, etc.

She studied in Vienna with Anne Bahr-Mildenburg and Alfred Jerger as well as with Toti dal Monte in Milan. She made her debut in Vienna as Rosina in 1943 and joined the Vienna State Opera in 1945. She won considerable fame as the Queen of the Night, which she sang at La Scala in Milan, as well as in Paris, Hamburg, the Salzburg Festival, Brussels and at the Paris Opéra. This role was followed by the role of Mozart's Konstanze, Zerbinetta, Adele, Martha, Olympia, Oscar and Lucia, which she also sang with great success in Naples. From the middle of the 1950s she changed her repertoire more into the lyrical roles such as Eva, Countess Almaviva, Elvira, Ilia, Marguerite, Nedda, Rosalinde and many more. She made her United States debut as Nanetta at the San Francisco Opera, in 1962. The same year she performed as Pamina with Herbert von Karajan at the re-opening at Theater an der Wien as a festival theatre. Wilma Lipp still says that her years at this theatre were the "most happy" years of her life, because the acoustic was perfect for her as a young singer.