Marita Napier Collection

BIO

The Marita Napier Collection is a collection of recorded music that features Marita Napier music. Having sung numerous works by composers such as Wagner and Richard Strauss, Napier internationally established herself as an exponent of music. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, she is one of three South African born opera singers who have achieved opera's Grand Slam, having sung lead roles at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Vienna State Opera, La Scala in Milan and Covent Garden in London.

She recorded the Mother in Humperdinck's Hänsel and Gretel with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Horst Stein. She has many recordings to her credit, among others Beethoven's Choral Symphony under Seiji Ozawa and Schönberg's Gurrelieder under Pierre Boulez as well as Kurt Weill's opera Der Zar Lasst sich Photographieren. She also recorded Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. She has sung under conductors such as Levine, Mehta, Sawallisch, Colin Davis and Boulez, among others.

For CAPAB Opera she sang Leonore in Fidelio and Santa in Der fliegende Holländer. At the Pretoria State Theatre she sang Electra in ldomeneo and Santuzza in Cavalleria Rusticana, and at Roodepoort Puccini's heroine Tosca and Leonore in Fidelio. She was also the soloist in Roodepoort in the South African premiere of Gorecki's Third Symphony.

She has performed 19 productions of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelugen at Covent Garden, La Scala, the Metropolitan and in San Francisco, Bayreuth, Vienna and all major opera houses in Europe. She also received the Grammy Award for the Metropolitan recording of Die Walküre.