The German soprano Inge Borkh was known for her powerful voice with a range and intensity that allowed her to excel in roles that demanded both strength and nuance. Praised for her ability to convey the dramatic and emotional aspects and complexities of her characters, her performances were often marked by electrifying interpretations – she also proved to be a magnificent actress on stage. She was convincing in both the German and Italian repertoires, today she is perhaps best remembered for her tormented and vengeful portrayal of the title role in Richard Strauss’s Elektra.
She was born Ingeborg Simon on 26 May 1921 in Mannheim, the daughter of a Jewish Swiss diplomat father and a German mother who worked as an opera soubrette. Borkh was trained as an actress at the Reinhardt Seminar of the Vienna Burgtheater and worked as such in Linz from 1937 and, after the family left Nazi Germany, in Basel from 1938. She then began her vocal studies with Vittorio Muratti in Milan and later at the Mozarteum in Salzburg.
She made her operatic debut in 1940 at the Luzerner Theatre as Agathe in Weber’s Der Freischütz (which also was Birgit Nilsson’s debut role), and during the Second World War she performed mainly in Switzerland, where she made her debut in 1943 in the title role of Strauss’s Salome at the Stadttheater Bern. In 1950 she began an extensive touring career and from 1952 she was associated with the Städtische Oper Berlin (now the Deutsche Oper) and the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich. In the same year she made her debut at the Bayreuther Festspiele, singing Freia in Das Rheingold and Sieglinde in Die Walküre under the baton of Joseph Keilberth. Unfortunately, her Wagner repertoire did not extend to Isolde and Brünnhilde.
Very successful guest appearances followed in Vienna, Hamburg and Stuttgart, Barcelona, Lisbon, Naples and Rio de Janeiro. She made her Teatro alla Scala debut in 1955 as Silvana in Respighi’s La Fiamma, and later appeared there as Katerina Izmailova in Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. At Covent Garden she sang Salome in 1959 and later Färberin in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten in 1967, conducted by Georg Solti. She made several appearances in the United States, in San Francisco in 1953 and in Chicago and Cincinnati in 1956, finally making her MET debut as Salome in 1958, where she also sang Elektra three years later.
She appeared in the world premieres of such operas as Werner Egk’s Irische Legende at the Salzburger Festspiele in 1955, Louise Talma’s Alkestiade at Oper Frankfurt in 1962 and Josef Tal’s Ahsmedai at Staatsoper Hamburg in 1971. After her operatic career ended in 1973, she performed as a chanson singer and took on character roles at the Hamburg Schauspielhaus from 1977. She published her autobiography Ich komm’ vom Theater nicht los in 1996. Borkh died on 26 August 2018 in Stuttgart at the age of 97.
