Nun eilt herbei

THE SONGBIRD: Wilma Lipp (1925–2019) was born in Vienna and studied there, as well as with Toti Dal Monte in Milan. She made her operatic debut in Vienna in 1943 as Rosina, and had her first engagement at the Vienna State Opera as in 1945 as Kate Pinkerton in “Madama Butterfly,” but she was soon singing leading roles such as Adele, Zerbinetta, Gilda, Sophie, both Blonde (6 performances) and Konstanze (76 performances), and, of course, Queen of the Night (128 performances). After nearly 1200 performances there, her final appearance was as Marianne in "Der Rosenkavalier" in 1981. Lipp was the most well-known Queen of the Night of her era, having sung the role internationally more than 400 times. Lipp was awarded the title Kammersängerin at age 28. The is from a gala opera concert in Vienna with tenor Waldemar Kmentt.

THE MUSIC: Otto Nicolai composed the music for the singspiel "Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor" (an adaptation of Shakespeare's comedy "The Merry Wives of Windsor") between 1845 and 1849, and conducted the premiere in Berlin in 1849. The work retains modest popularity in Germany, but only its elegant, frothy overture gets programmed much in the rest of the world as the opera has been overshadowed by Verdi's "Falstaff" interpretation of this Shakespeare play. Here, Frau Fluth (the Alice Ford character) sings a vivacious coloratura aria in the first act whereby she expounds on the cleverness of women and vows to make a fool out of Sir John Falstaff, after he sends the same love letter to both her and her friend, Frau Reich.