Helen Traubel

Helen Traubel
Helen Traubel in a 1945 publicity photograph for Columbia Records
Born	Helen Francesca Traubel (1899-06-16)June 16, 1899 St. Louis, Missouri
Died	July 28, 1972(1972-07-28) (aged 73) Santa Monica, California
Occupation	Opera singer

Helen Francesca Traubel (June 16, 1899 – July 28, 1972) was an American opera and concert singer. A dramatic soprano, she was best known for her Wagnerian roles, especially those of Brünnhilde and Isolde.

Born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri, she began her career as a concert singer and went on to sing at the Metropolitan Opera from 1937-53. Starting in the 1950s, she also developed a career as a nightclub and cabaret singer as well as appearing in television, films and musical theatre. Traubel spent her later years in Santa Monica, California, where she died at the age of 73.

Traubel was born in St. Louis, Missouri to a prosperous family of German descent. She was the daughter of Otto Ferdinand Traubel, a pharmacist, and Clara Traubel (née Stuhr). She studied singing in her native city with Louise Vetta-Karst and later in New York City with Giuseppe Boghetti among other teachers. She made her debut as a concert singer with the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in 1923, and in 1926 she got a first offer to join the Metropolitan Opera company after performing the aria Liebestod at the Lewisohn Stadium under conductor Rudolph Ganz. She turned down the offer in order to continue with her studies and career as a concert singer.

Traubel made her first appearance on the opera stage on May 12, 1937, when the composer Walter Damrosch asked her to portray the role of Mary Rutledge in the world premiere of his opera The Man Without a Country at the Met. Later that year she made her debut with the Chicago City Opera Company with whom she was active until the company went bankrupt in 1939. In 1940 she joined the roster of the Chicago Opera Company, remaining active with that company until it too went bankrupt in 1946. She sang in several performances with the San Francisco Opera in 1945 and 1947; making her debut with the company as Brünnhilde in Die Walküre on October 9, 1945 with Lauritz Melchior as Siegmund, Margaret Harshaw as Fricka, and William Steinberg conducting.