Anny Helm

She was a member of the ensemble at the Stadttheater Magdeburg and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and gave guest performances at numerous German theatres and at the Bayreuth Festival, in Vienna, Paris, London, Brussels and Buenos Aires as well as at all the major opera houses in Italy.

She sang at the Grüner Hügel [de] (Bayreuth), conducted by Arturo Toscanini, who later cast her in Italy in the title role of La Gioconda, and by Wilhelm Furtwängler.

Under the musical direction of Arturo Toscanini she took over the demanding title role in La Gioconda in 1934 in the Verona Arena.

She made her first guest appearance at the Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires in 1936, at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London in 1939, and in both cases she sang Venus in Tannhäuser.

Beethoven: Gluck: Janáček: Mascagni: Mozart: Ponchielli: Puccini: Richard Strauss: Wagner: Wolf-Ferrari: The 1928 Bayreuth Tristan-and-Isolde cast (Gunnar Graarud and Nanny Larsén-Todsen in the title roles, Helm as Brangäne, Karl Elmendorff at the pulpit) was largely recorded by Columbia.