A dramatic mezzo-soprano renowned for her Wagnerian roles, Ruth Hesse was born in Wuppertal on September 18, 1936, where she studied opera singing before completing her training in Hamburg and Milan. Joining the Lübeck Opera Company, where she made her debut in 1960 in Gluck'sOrfeo, she then spent two seasons at the Hanover Staatsoper, and at the same time made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival, where she was a regular participant until 1979, notably under the baton of Hans Knappertsbusch in the early 1960s. In 1962, Ruth Hesse joined the company of Berlin's Deutsche Oper, where she remained until 1995. In addition to premiering Hans Werner Henze's opera Der junge Lord in 1965, the mezzo-soprano made her Vienna Opera debut that year, in Wagner's Lohengrin and Verdi's Don Carlos. The singer established herself on Europe's great stages, in Lyon in Tristan und Isolde (1966), at London's Royal Opera House in Richard Strauss's La Femme sans ombre (1969) and at the Opéra Garnier in Paris in Mozart's Les Noces de Figaro (1972). She reprised the role of the nurse in Der junge Lord several times, notably at the Salzburg Festival under Karl Böhm. Appointed Kammersängerin at the Vienna Opera in 1982, Ruth Hesse continued to appear on this stage in numerous roles, outside the sphere of Wagner operas that had brought her fame on record with Knappertsbusch, Rudolf Kempe, Karl Böhm and Hans Swarowsky. She performs the title role in Bizet's Carmen, several operas by Verdi, Richard Strauss, Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, Korngold's Violanta, Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, Hindemith's Mathis the Painter, Janáček's Jenůfa and Offenbach's Les Contes d'Hoffmann, between Wagner's Ring des Nibelungen, Parsifal, Tristan und Isolde, Lohengrin, Les Maîtres chanteurs de Nuremberg and Der Fliegende Holländer. On November 29, 1988, Ruth Hesse bids farewell to Vienna in another favourite role, that of Herodias in Strauss's opera Salome. Married to stage director Siegwulf Turek in 1976, she retired to Halstatt, Austria, where she died on July 13, 2024 at the age of 87.
