Born in Berlin on 16 March, 1928, the mezzo soprano Christa Ludwig celebrates her 80th Birthday in 2008. Arthaus Musik is marking this anniversary with a special DVD Birthday Edition: Franz Schubert Winterreise, together with a Lieder recital dating from the last year of her stage career. Both programmes represent something unique in what was one of the world’s longest singing careers. Christa Ludwig was the second female singer, after Lotte Lehmann, to give a concert hall performance of Winterreise. It is a performance we wanted to mark in our birthday edition by releasing for the first time the recording of a private Lieder recital dating from 1994 and featuring Winterreise. That same year Ludwig performed several Lieder recitals as part of a farewell tour. Christa Ludwig sings Lieder by Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Leonard Bernstein. Her accompanist for both programmes is Charles Spencer. In the third programme we experience Christa Ludwig giving a master class on the stage of Vienna’s Volkstheater in 1999. This is Ludwig the opera singer using her natural charm to motivate young singers. With friendly advice, she turns notes into music and draws surprising performances from a new generation of soloists.
