The great German mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig has died at her home in Klosterneuburg, Austria, at the age of 93. Ludwig’s remarkable 48-year career spanned mezzo roles such as Dorabella in Mozart’s Così fan Tutte, Cherubino in Le Nozze di Figaro, Octavian in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, to soprano roles such as the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, the Dyer’s Wife in Strauss’s Die Frau one Schatten and Leonore in Beethoven’s Fidelio, as well as Wagner roles including Ortrud, Kundry and Brangäne. She worked with many of the 20th century’s major conductors including Karl Böhm, Leonard Bernstein and Herbert von Karajan – “my three great conductors,” as she put it in a Limelight interview with Clive Paget for her 90th birthday in 2018 – as well as the likes of Otto Klemperer, Claudio Abbado, Seiji Ozawa and Riccardo Muti.

Christa Ludwig at 90

She was also a master of lieder, particularly Schubert – she regularly performed Winterreise – Brahms, Wolff and Mahler. She told a Swiss publication in 2017 that her choice of funeral music was Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen from Mahler’s Rückert Lieder, sung by herself, “but I do...