Helen Donath Still Performing 55 Years After Making NYC Debut

An early portrait of the soprano who has sung for over five decades.

A native of Texas, Helen Donath made her New York debut as a concert and lieder singer. 55 years later, she will appear in Gotham Chamber Opera's upcoming season: "The first of the company’s four new productions will be 'Baden-Baden 1927,' a quadruple bill that recreates a legendary program heard at the Baden-Baden Festival of Contemporary Music on July 17, 1927. The most famous of the works heard that night was Kurt Weill’s 'Mahagonny Songspiel,' but the companion pieces were estimable too. They were Paul Hindemith’s 'Hin und Zurück' ('There and Back'), Darius Milhaud’s 'Enlèvement d’Europe' ('The Abduction of Europa'), and Ernst Toch’s 'Prinzessin auf der Erbse' ('The Princess and the Pea'). Gotham’s production, which will have the veteran soprano Helen Donath and the bass John Cheek in the cast, will be staged by Paul Curran at the Gerald W. Lynch Theater at John Jay College, Oct. 23 through Nov. 1." [Source, Source]