Thusnelda

Thusnelda (c. 10 BC - unknown) was a Germanic noblewoman captured by Germanicus, the grandson of Augustus, and leader of an army that invaded Germania. The ancient Roman historian Tacitus and Strabo cites her capture as evidence of both the firmnesss and restraint of Roman arms.

She was the daughter of the Cheruscan prince Segestes. Her father had intended her for someone else, but Arminius had abducted and impregnated her. Arminius subsequently led a coalition of Germanic tribes that lured the legions of Publius Quinctilius Varus to near-annihilation at Battle of Teutoburg Forest in 9 AD. This disaster generally is seen as stifling any future ambitions of Rome to conquer Germania.

The war between the Roman Empire and the northern German tribes continued, and in May 15 AD Thusnelda was captured by Germanicus, the nephew of Emperor Tiberius, who commanded the invasion of Germany. She was pregnant and staying with her father, who was a Roman client and bitterly opposed to Arminius, and it was her father who delivered her to Germanicus, after the latter saved him by driving off Arminius' forces, who had besieged him. Her husband much grieved over her loss and did not marry again.

Hermann und Thusnelda

Hermann und Thusnelda is a poem written in 1752 by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock exalting the Cheruscan chieftain Arminius, whom Johannes Turmair and Martin Luther named Hermann in the 16th century, and his wife Thusnelda. The poem was set to music by Franz Schubert in 1815 (D. 322).

History

Since the rediscovery of Tacitus's Germania in the 16th century, Germans have exalted the Germanic tribes as their direct ancestors. They especially praised German liberty defended by Arminius in 9 A.D. when three legions of the Roman Empire were defeated on Germanic soil, thus putting an end to Roman plans to subjugate Germania.

In Klopstock's poem, blood-stained Hermann returns from battle and is praised by his wife Thusnelda, who is happy about the death of the Roman soldiers. Her husband's victory heavily delights her making her confess that her love for Hermann has never been as ardent as now after the lurid fight. Arminius himself only regrets that Roman emperor Augustus has not been present as he would have slain him.

Janet Baker

Dame Janet Abbott Baker CH DBE FRSA (born 21 August 1933) is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.

She was particularly closely associated with baroque and early Italian opera and the works of Benjamin Britten. During her career, which spanned the 1950s to the 1980s, she was considered an outstanding singing actress and widely admired for her dramatic intensity, perhaps best represented in her famous portrayal as Dido, the tragic heroine of Berlioz's magnum opus, Les Troyens. As a concert performer, Dame Janet was noted for her interpretations of the music of Gustav Mahler and Edward Elgar. David Gutman, writing in Gramophone, described her performance of Mahler's Kindertotenlieder as "intimate, almost self-communing."

Biography and career

Early life

Janet Abbott Baker was born in Hatfield, South Yorkshire, where her father was an engineer as well as a chorister. Members of her family worked at Bentley Pit, in Doncaster, South Yorkshire. She attended York College for Girls and then Wintringham Girls' Grammar School in Grimsby. The death of her elder brother, Peter, when she was 10 years old, from a heart condition, was a formative moment that made her take responsibility for the rest of her life, she revealed in a BBC Radio 3 Lebrecht Interview in September 2011.