Introduction
Marya Freund (12 December 1876 – 21 May 1966) was a Polish-born French soprano.
Career
She studied violin with Pablo de Sarasate, then singing with Henri Criticos and Raymond Zur Mühlen. In 1913 she took part in the creation of Arnold Schönberg's Gurrelieder in Vienna and became the appointed interpreter of the Pierrot lunaire. Her repertoire, especially that of the 20th, included Gustav Mahler, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Francis Poulenc, Karol Szymanowski.
In the 1920s, she began a career as a teacher and gave some advice to Germaine Lubin. Jewish, she was arrested in February 1944 in occupied France. On the intervention of Alfred Cortot, she was released from the Drancy internment camp and transferred to the Rothschild hospital. Marya Freund was the mother of bass singer Doda Conrad.
Sources
- Alain Paris Dictionnaire des interprètes Bouquins/Robert Laffont 1990 (p. 382) ISBN 2-221-06660-X