Legends of the role
Voices that shaped this opera, from the very first Papageno of 1791 to the Queen of the Night now flying past the edge of the solar system.
Emanuel Schikaneder
He wrote the words, ran the theatre, and on the first night in 1791 stepped out in feathers himself: Schikaneder was the very first Papageno, with Mozart conducting. The takings later helped him build the Theater an der Wien.
Photo: Period engraving, Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Tiana Lemnitz
Pamina on the 1937 Berlin discs that play on this site. Critics spent decades searching for words for her floating pianissimo; the shortest description is side 24, Ach, ich fühl's.
Hear this voice on the 1937 discs →
Erna Berger
The Queen of the Night on our 1937 discs, recorded when she was nearly forty and still gleaming above high F. Born in a village outside Dresden, she sang from the Semperoper to the Met and taught a whole generation of sopranos.
Hear this voice on the 1937 discs →
Gerhard Hüsch
The birdcatcher of the 1937 Berlin set: light, sly and word-perfect. Between opera evenings he more or less invented the modern song recital on record, setting down Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise before the war.
Hear this voice on the 1937 discs → Photo: Japan 1952, Wikimedia Commons (public domain)
Helge Rosvaenge
A Danish tenor with a trumpet of a top register, the Tamino of the 1937 Berlin recording. Berlin and Vienna competed over him for two decades; side 6, Dies Bildnis, shows what the fuss was about.
Hear this voice on the 1937 discs →Fritz Wunderlich
For many, simply the Tamino: his 1964 recording under Karl Böhm is still the reference. He died at 35 after a fall, weeks before his Met debut, leaving one of the shortest and most loved careers in opera.
Lucia Popp
She recorded the Queen of the Night with Klemperer at 24, all icy glitter, then came back two decades later as the warmest Pamina on record. Very few singers have owned both sides of this opera.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA
Edda Moser
Her Der Hölle Rache is literally out of this world: NASA pressed it onto the Voyager Golden Record in 1977, and it is now the farthest Queen of the Night from Earth. On stage she was just as fearless, from Salzburg to the Met.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA