Judith Blegen

Early life

The daughter of Dr. Halward Martin Blegen and Dorothy M. Blegen (nee Anderson), Judith Blegen was born in Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky, on April 27, 1941. She grew up in Missoula, Montana, with her sister, the pianist Barbara Blegen, and two brothers, Hal and Tim. Her parents were of Norwegian heritage. Her father was a surgeon and attending physician in Missoula who died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 48 in 1961. Her earliest music training was received from her mother who was a violin teacher by profession. Her mother later worked as a nurse in Minneapolis, moving the Blegen family there in 1961.

Blegen was a student in the Missoula County Public Schools system; attending Paxson School and Missoula County High School (MCHS, now Hellgate High School). At MCHS she was a violinist in the school's orchestra, and by her junior year was concertmaster of that ensemble. She also sang in choirs at MCHS, and was a featured soloist at school concerts. She graduated from MCHS in 1959. She was also active as a choral singer and soloist at an Episcopal Church in Missoula that the Blegen family attended.

As a teenager, Blegen studied violin privately with Gordon Childs; a violin professor at Montana State University (MSU). She also studied singing with John L. Lester in her growing up years; beginning voice lessons at the age of 14. Lester served terms as head of the voice departments at both MSU and the University of Montana during his long career. She gave her first voice recital at MSU in January 1958 with her sister as her accompanist. In May 1958 she won first prize in the high school division of the violin concerto contest at the Greater Spokane Music Festival. That same year she was a district winner in the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions held in Spokane.

By the winter of 1958 Blegen was a violinist in the Missoula Civic Symphony Orchestra (MCSO, now Missoula Symphony Orchestra). In April 1959 she was a violin soloist at a music festival organized by the Montana Music Educators Association. She was the featured soprano soloist in a concert of folk songs with the MCSO in the Spring of 1959, and was featured singing Baroque opera arias in a concert with MSU's University Symphonette and Choir. She later returned to perform as a soloist with the MCSO in 1964.

Conservatory education and early career

Both Judith and her sister Barbara were awarded full scholarships to the Curtis Institute of Music (CIM) in Philadelphia where they began their studies in September 1959. Judith was awarded a voice scholarship, but was admitted with a note allowing her to continue studies in violin in conjunction with her voice studies. Her first primary teachers at CIM were Efrem Zimbalist (violin) and Eufemia Giannini-Gregory (voice). She later studied violin with Toshiya Eto and Oscar Shumsky at CIM with Giannini-Gregory remaining her only voice teacher. She graduated from CIM with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964.

While still a Curtis student, Blegen worked on the music staff of First Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia as their resident soprano soloist. She was a member of the chorus in the summer light opera season at Starlight Theatre in Kansas City, Missouri, in the summer of 1960. She gave a concert with her sister and harpsichordist Temple Painter at the Woodmere Art Museum in May 1961 sponsored by the Germantown Chestnut Hill Women's Committee as a fund raiser for the Philadelphia Orchestra (PO). She was an apprentice at the Santa Fe Opera (SFO) in the summer of 1961, and gave her first opera performances with the company that year as Barbarina in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and as the milliner in Der Rosenkavalier by R. Strauss. She toured with the SFO to Europe for a two month period; performing with the company at a music festival in Berlin and in Belgrade, Yugoslavia.

In April 1962 Blegen won the PO's Senior Student Auditions which earned her a contract to perform with the orchestra as a soprano soloist. That same month she made her concert debut in Worcester, Massachusetts, as the soprano soloist in Faure's Requiem and Handel's Laudate pueri Dominum (a setting of Psalm 113) with the Cantata Singers conducted by Richard Westenburg. She sang in concert with the PO on October 22, 1962, at the Academy of Music, Philadelphia; performing the mad scene from Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor and the aria "Großmächtige Prinzessin" from Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos under the baton of William Smith.

In the summer of 1962 Blegen studied at the Music Academy of the West (MAW) where she starred in the title role of the school's production of Massenet's Manon which was directed by Martial Singher and performed at the Lobero Theatre. Singher was one of Blegen's teachers at CIM where he was director of the opera workshop, and was her voice teacher while at MAW. He had previously coached Blegen in the role of Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro for a workshop of that opera at CIM. In December 1962 she was the soprano soloist in Handel's Messiah with the Kemble Choir conducted by George W. Decker at Kemble Memorial United Methodist Church in Woodbury, New Jersey.

In January 1963 Blegen performed another benefit concert for the PO with her sister and tenor Alex Perkins performing excerpts from Manon; this time at the Academy Ballroom in Philadelphia. The following March she performed Brahm's Liebeslieder Waltzes as part of a vocal quartet with pianists Eleanor and Vladimir Sokoloff at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and was soon after featured in a concert at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. In May 1963 she was a soloist with the South Jersey Chamber Orchestra under conductor Anthony Mecoli at the Glassboro Theatre. She performed Stravinsky's Pastorale with the Philadelphia Wind Quintet (PWQ) in a concert given at the 1964 New York World's Fair; also singing with the PWQ on their 1964 album released by Columbia Records.

International career in the 1960s

After successfully auditioning for Gian Carlo Menotti and Thomas Schippers, Blegen made what was billed as her international debut at the 1963 Festival dei Due Mondi (FDM) in Spoleto, Italy, as Il Lago (the Spirit of the Lake) in Stanley Hollingsworth's opera La madre (English: The Mother). The production was directed by Sandro Sequi [it], conducted by Julius Rudel, and starred Mietta Sighele in the title role. The FDM was run by Menotti, and Blegen would continue to collaborate with Menotti through her career; including recording several of his operas. She returned for further performances at the FDM in 1964 and 1965, and at the 1966 FDM portrayed Mélisande in Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande with John Reardon as Pelléas and the orchestra of the Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi.

Blegen was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 1964 which enabled her to pursue further voice studies in Europe in 1964–1965. She used the scholarship to study voice with Luigi Ricci in Rome and Germany repertoire in Munich. In 1965 she became a principal artist at the Staatstheater Nürnberg (SN); making her debut there s Olympia in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann. This was followed by more than 30 performances at the SN as Rosina in Rossini's The Barber of Seville. Other roles she subsequently performed there included Susanna, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos and the title role in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor.

In 1967 Blegen gave her first performance at the Salzburg Festival as Papagena in Mozart's The Magic Flute. In April 1967 she returned to Philadelphia's Academy of Music (PAM) to perform as Lesbia in the first performance in Philadelphia of Orff's Catulli Carmina with the PO and the choirs of Temple University led by Eugene Ormandy. This work was recorded and released on Columbia Records later that same year. She sang at PAM again in 1968 as a soloist with the Camden Symphony in a concert of opera arias. In December 1968 she portrayed Monica in Menotti's The Medium with the Washington Opera Society (now Washington National Opera).

Blegen remained a resident singer at the SN until leaving in 1968 when she joined the Vienna State Opera (VSO), making her debut that year as Ännchen in Weber's Der Freischütz. She remained a resident artist through 1970 where her other repertoire included Donizetti's Adina in L'elisir d'amore and Norina in Don Pasquale, Rosina, and Zerbinetta. She was also active with the Vienna Volksoper in 1968–1969; including performing Zerlina in a new production of Auber's Fra Diavolo which was mounted specifically with her in mind.

In 1969 she appeared at the Santa Fe Opera as Emily in the United States premiere of Menotti's Help, Help, the Globolinks!, a role requiring her both to sing and play the violin. She returned to Santa Fe in 1970 to reprise the role of Emily and perform Mozart's Susanna and the title role in Stravinsky's The Nightingale. She made her European television debut on the Eurovision network as Blonde in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail under conductor Georg Solti; a production which was broadcast in 1969, directed by Heinz Liesendahl [de].‎

Metropolitan Opera

Blegen made he debut with the Metropolitan Opera ("the Met") in New York as Papagena in The Magic Flute on January 19, 1970. Shortly after this she was asked to step-in at a late notice into the role of Marzelline in Fidelio which was mounted to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Beethoven's birthday. The part of Sophie in both Massenet's Werther and Der Rosenkavalier followed this, and by the 1971–1972 she had progressed to the role of Mélisande as a substitute for Teresa Stratas. In 1973 she portrayed Ascanius in the Met's first staging of Berlioz's Les Troyens.

Blegen sang at the Met for 21 seasons in a total of 20 roles. Many of the roles she performed were from the lyric coloratura soprano and soubrette fachs. One of her more memorable performance with the company was as Donizetti's Adina to the Nemorino of Luciano Pavarotti in 1981 which was filmed and released on video tape. Some of the other roles she sang with the company included Adele in Die Fledermaus, Mozart's Blonde, Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto, Gretel in Humperdinck's Hansel and Gretel, Juliette in Gounod's Roméo et Juliette, Nanetta in Verdi's Falstaff, Oscar in Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, and Mozart's Pamina in The Magic Flute, Susanna, and Zerlina in Don Giovanni.

Other performances

During the 1970s and 1980s, Blegen was a frequent guest on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. She appeared as Susanna at the San Francisco Opera in 1972, and at the Edinburgh Festival in 1976. She portrayed Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier for her first appearances with the Lyric Opera of Chicago in 1973, and at the Palais Garnier in Paris in 1977. In 1973 she was a soloist in Haydn's Harmoniemesse with the New York Philharmonic (NYP) as part of Leonard Bernstein's series of Haydn concerts at Lincoln Center. In 1974 she returned to the Salzburg Festival as Mozart's Blonde, and was a soloist in Bach's Mass in B minor at Avery Fisher Hall (AFH) with the New Jersey Pro Arte Chorale led by conductor John Nelson.

In 1975 Blegen made her debut at the Royal Opera House in London as Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte. In 1976 she performed Alban Berg's Lulu Suite with the NYP led by Pierre Boulez at AFH. She later recorded this work with Boulez; a recording which garnered her a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Classical Vocal Soloist Performance in 1981. On May 14, 1976, she was the soprano soloist in the world premiere of Menotti's Landscapes and Remembrances given at the Marcus Performing Arts Center in Milwaukee. This performances was filmed live for television broadcast. In 1979 she appeared at the Grand Théâtre de Genève as a soloist in Mahler's Symphony No. 8; a work she repeated the following year with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and conductor Seiji Ozawa.

In 1986 she returned to the VSO as Pamina in The Magic Flute, and performed Adele at La Monnaie. That same year she performed the role of Gabriel in Haydn's The Creation with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra & Chorus in a filmed recording of the oratorio under conductor Leonard Bernstein.

Personal and later life

Blegen retired from the stage in 1991; a decision partly made for safety reasons due to Blegen being stalked by a fan. She married Peter Singher, the son of her teacher Martial Singher, in Nuremberg in 1967. Her husband was an airline pilot for Cable Commuter Airlines. They had one son, Thomas Christopher Singher, who was born in April 1970; they divorced in 1975. In 1977 she married the violinist Raymond Gniewek. Gniewek was concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra from 1957 until his retirement in 2000. Blegen's marriage to Gniewek ended upon his death in 2021.

Blegen was a 1983 recipient of the Montana Governor's Arts Award. She died on October 23, 2026, at the age of 85.

Opera recordings

Choral and symphonic

Studio recordings

Filmed operas

Other

Notes

Citations

Bibliography

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