No.1 Friedrich Schorr (1888 – 1953)
Born in Hungary, Schorr was the son of a Jewish cantor himself possessed of a fine voice but who tried to persuade his son to study law. Young Friedrich had his heart set on the stage, however, and after making his opera debut in Philadelphia in 1912 as the Second Monk in Wolf-Ferrari’s I gioielli della Madonna he returned to Graz and sang his first Wotan Die Walküre at the age of twenty-three. He was affectionately nicknamed the baby Wotan for several years afterwards – a response both to his age and his short stature. Schorr went on to sing major roles (including Mozart and Verdi) in Prague, Cologne and Berlin but it was for the Wagner repertoire that he was most in demand. He made his Covent Garden debut in 1924 in the Ring as Wotan/Wanderer and Gunther, conducted by Bruno Walter – in a season that, remarkably, also included house debuts by Frida Leider, Lotte Lehmann and Lauritz Melchior. He appeared at Covent Garden regularly through the next nine seasons, adding Wolfram, Holländer, King Marke and Sachs to his London repertoire – roles he was also singing to acclaim in Bayreuth, San Francisco and at the Metropolitan in New York. His work in Europe ceased with the rise to power of the Nazis in 1933 but by then Schorr had emigrated to New York, where he continued to sing at the Met until 1943 and to teach until his death, in Connecticut, in 1953.
Schorr insisted that Wagner should be sung in the style of Italian bel canto, with emphasis on vowel production and sustained legato in the vocal line. His recorded legacy is a testament to these principles, and yet his diction is always brilliantly clear and precise. He remains a towering figure in Wagnerian singing of the early 20th century. Enjoy this selection of his singing and the glory of a past era:
Hans Sachs:
Act 2 Was duftet doch der Flieder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4rj6nVhBQQ
Act 3 Wahn! Wahn! Überall, Wahn! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_iKQhE9hEM
Act 3 Verachtet mir die Meister nicht https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7BPB1nOLcQ
Wotan:
Das Rheingold Abendlich strahlt der Sonne Auge
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ycYbY4UkzE
Die Walküre Act 3 Leb wohl du kühnes herrliches Kind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ycYbY4UkzE
Mendelssohn Elijah Herr Gott Abrahams
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=urDfw6uXxMQ
Mozart Don Giovanni Deh, vieni alla finestra
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6Jp5UGSVHY
Friedrich Schorr as Hans Sachs
No.2 Frida Leider (1888 – 1975)
Born in Berlin to working-class parents, Leider initially worked as a bank clerk to support her singing studies. She made her stage debut as Venus Tannhäuser in Halle in 1915. “I was a dramatic soprano right from the beginning” she said and her repertoire included Aida, Norma, Amelia Ballo, Santuzza, Donna Anna Don Giovanni, Leonora Fidelio and the Marschallin as well as the major Wagnerian roles for which she is most famous. She appeared at Covent Garden for fifteen consecutive seasons between 1924 and 1938 as Brünnhilde, Senta, Kundry and Isolde, as well as singing Leonora Il Trovatore, Donna Anna, Marschallin and the title role in Gluck’s Armide. Her solid vocal technique was built on a true bel canto style of singing which she said she then developed for the demands of the heavy dramatic repertoire – a lyric soprano intensified, as John Steane described her. Two remarkable recordings of Leider in Act 2 of Götterdämmerung at Covent Garden survive from 1936 and 1938, conducted by Beecham and Furtwängler respectively: she is electrifying in both. The recorded sound is perhaps slightly better in the earlier version, and Melchior in great form as Siegfried. The comparison between the readings of these two great conductors is also fascinating.
In addition to her London appearances, Leider sang in Vienna, Paris, Milan, Chicago, Buenos Aires and for two seasons at the Met in New York. She was also at Bayreuth in 1928 and again from 1933 – 38 in the Ring, Tristan and Parsifal. Leider married Rudolf Deman, leader of the Berlin Staatsoper orchestra, in 1930. Deman was Jewish and with the Anschluss of Austria in 1938 her operatic career in Germany ended and German artists were also prohibited from working abroad. She was fifty years old. Frida escaped to Switzerland with her husband and only after the war could she return to Berlin. She taught at the Hochschule and worked as artistic advisor at the Staatsoper, where she also staged a production of Tristan, conducted by Furtwängler.
Rare footage of Leider and Max Lorenz rehearsing at Bayreuth in 1934:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHRFrmoedDg
Arias from Il Trovatore (in German): remarkable legato!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqMxdVASmC8
Götterdämmerung Act 2: Beecham (1936) and Furtwängler (1938):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oRMfoo0LNQ&t=6330s
Isolde’s Verklärung, conducted by Barbirolli in 1931:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie5Z_ehN76g
The Frida Leider Society website: http://www.frida-leider.de/en/society.html
Frida Leider as Isolde
No.3 Lauritz Melchior (1890 – 1973)
Born in Copenhagen, Melchior sang in a church choir as a boy soprano and then as a baritone with the Danish Royal Opera, make his debut as Silvio I Pagliacci in 1913. Studies with the Danish tenor Vilhelm Herold (who had sung Lohengrin and Walther at Covent Garden early in the 20th century) revealed the heldentenor in Melchior and he made his tenor debut as Tannhäuser in Copenhagen in 1918. By 1924 he was singing Siegmund at Covent Garden and at Bayreuth, where he also appeared as Parsifal in that year for the first time. He then sang at Bayreuth every season until 1931, and every year at Covent Garden from 1926 to 1939.
Melchior’s Met debut in 1926 was also as Tannhäuser but much greater acclaim followed his Tristan there in 1929. He sang at the Met until 1950, but much to his disappointment, only in the German repertoire. He longed to sing Otello and Radomes in New York, as he had done at Covent Garden, but Edward Johnson, Met General Manager, had Martinelli and Vinay for those roles and refused to cast Melchior alongside them.
After the war, Melchior appeared in five Hollywood movies and made frequent appearances on radio and television. He created the Melchior Foundation to help aspiring Heldentenors into the repertoire he had virtually made his own. There are numerous recordings of Lauritz Melchior, with many of the great singers and conductors of his generation. Frida Leider (featured in the March Newsletter) said that his Tristan “has not been equalled”. Listen to them here in the Act 2 duet, conducted by Albert Coates in 1929:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUslkjy992U
Forging song Siegfried Act 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CN5NRmvXDF0
In fernem Land Lohengrin Act 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=30MtfibgZio
Other roles: Otello Act 3 Dio mi potevi (in German):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QI5F-qF4gno
L’Africaine O paradis (in German): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95fKYC7fbMs
Torna a Surriento, at the movies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4luX-POpJM
The Lauritz Melchior website:
https://web.archive.org/web/20020806162246/http://wap03.informatik.fh-wiesbaden.de/weber1/melchior/melframe.html
Lauritz Melchior as Siegfried
No. 4 Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1861 – 1936)
Ernestine Schumann-Heink was born in Bohemia, then part of the Austrian Empire, and made her operatic debut in Dresden as Azucena (!) at the age of 17. She performed with the Hamburg Opera under Gustav Mahler at Covent Garden in 1892, and became well known for her performances of Wagner at Bayreuth, singing at the Festival there from 1896 to 1914. She first sang at the Metropolitan Opera in 1899, and performed regularly with the Met until 1932, her final performance being Erda in Das Rheingold at the age of 71. In 1909, she created the rôle of Klytaemnestra in the world premiere of Strauss’ Elektra, of which she said she had no high opinion, calling it ‘a fearful din’. Strauss, for his part, was not entirely taken by Schumann-Heink; according to one story, during rehearsals he told the orchestra ‘Louder! I can still hear Mme. Schumann-Heink!’. She became an American citizen in 1905 and spent the rest of her life living in the USA with her third husband, having raised seven children with her first two spouses. Her repertoire included all the Wagnerian mezzo/contralto characters and she also sang Carmen, Fidès Le Prophèteand Katisha in The Mikado among her many roles.
Erda Das Rheingold recorded in 1929 when she was 68:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa9pXsrWDJo
Rinaldo Lascia ch’io pianga (1909):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrDjZm4_n9I
Stephen Foster Old folks at home (1918):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ3pkW4Q_gE
Ernestine Schumann-Heink as Waltraute, in Bayreuth
No.5 Josef Metternich (1915 – 2005)
Josef Metternich was born near Cologne. He became a member of the opera chorus in Cologne and then Bonn. After a short stay at the opera in Wiesbaden he was engaged at the Städtische Oper, Berlin where opera director Michael Bohnen gave him the opportunity to appear in roles such as Jago, Alfio, Simone, Pizarro, Escamillo, Figaro (Rossini), Conte di Luna and Amonasro, all of them within the same year! From 1946 onwards he became a highly esteemed singer in East Germany and Italy. Metternich made his only appearance at Covent Garden in 1951, as the Holländer. From 1952 until 1959 he was a member of the Vienna State Opera and appeared at La Scala, the Paris Opéra, at the Edinburgh Festival (1952) and at several German opera houses. From 1953 until 1956 he sang at the New York Met, where he debuted as Don Carlos La Forza del Destino. His roles there totalled 22 performances as Tonio, Renato, Amonasro, Wolfram and Kurwenal. From 1954 he was a member at the opera houses of Munich, Berlin and Hamburg. He retired in 1971 but continued as a highly sought-after coach at the Musikhochschule Köln until his death in 2005.
Der fliegende Holländer – Die Frist ist um : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2r3IayerPms
Die tote Stadt – Mein Sehen, mein Wähnen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LgbJZdIVqqI
Les Contes d’Hoffmann – Scintille diamant, in German: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCVPU-QaW8g
Arabella Act 2 (with Elisabeth Schwarzkopf): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b-Ow3dJo5Y
Josef Metternich
No. 6 Hans Hotter (1909 – 2003)
Born in Offenbach am Main, Hotter studied philosophy at Munich University alongside piano and organ at the Hochschule für Musik. Initially intending to be a conductor, Hotter took singing lessons with Matthäus Römer who persuaded him to pursue a vocal career. Römer was to become his lifelong mentor and Hotter credited him with giving this sound advice:
“Never sing Wagner with more than 85% of your voice.
Mostly with not more than 65%. Always leave some elbow room”
The young baritone made his operatic debut at the age of 21 in Opava; by 1934 he was singing in Hamburg and in 1937 Clemens Krauss engaged Hotter at the Munich Opera where his roles included Pizarro, Escamillo, Count Almaviva and Iago. Through Krauss, Hotter met and worked with Richard Strauss, creating the roles of Olivier in Capriccio (1942) and Jupiter in Der Liebe der Danae (1944). He went on to sing the great Wagner roles at the Vienna Opera for over thirty years as well as regularly at Covent Garden, Bayreuth and the Met. Hotter also worked as a stage director, staging the Ring at Covent Garden between 1961 -64.
Equally at home as a Lieder singer, Hotter’s performance of Die Winterreise was widely celebrated and he recorded it three times during his long career. At the age of 80, he sang Schigolch in Lulu in San Francisco and Paris, to considerable acclaim and his farewell performance at the Proms in 1994 is remarkable to witness (see link below).
“The singing voice derives organically from the speaking voice.
Music and words, both are equally important for me.
But I also study the rests, what happens in between”
Hotter’s advice to young singers: “Remember, it is important to try not to be boring.”
There is a wealth of recorded material available on YouTube, including three WalküreAbschieds:
1942 Studio recording in Berlin, conductor Robert Heger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAWkrNoEfUE
1956 at Bayreuth, conductor Hans Knappertsbusch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMSThCi28H8
1965 for Belgian television, conductor André Vandernoot https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WhwHY8owxM
and much else:
1942/3 Schubert Die Winterreise, with Michael Raucheisen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GEyWlp0xSs
1950 Bach Ich habe genug, conductor Anthony Bernard https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvtxqTOgOpw
1964 Schubert An die Musik https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGDsogVNoEA
1994 Hotter (aged 85!) as Narrator in Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder at the Proms, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mEu0UHmUHI
Hotter sang both Amfortas and Gurnemanz during his career at Bayreuth – a complete performance of the latter is available here:
Hans Knappertsbusch conducting Parsifal from Bayreuth with Hotter singing Gurnemanz and the young Jon Vickers in the title role
Prologue to Götterdämmerung (1970) in Hotter’s production at Covent Garden designed by Gunther Schneider-Siemssen with Ludmilla Dvoraková and Karl-Josef Hering as Brünnhilde and Siegfried
No.7 Kirsten Flagstad (1895 – 1962)
Born in 1895 into a musical family, Flagstad was given a score of Lohengrin on her tenth birthday and duly memorised the role of Elsa. Her early stage career in Norway was mainly in operetta and her debut in Wagner, not surprisingly as Elsa, came in 1929 at the age of 34. After singing the principal roles in Tosca and Aida in Oslo, Flagstad gave her first Isolde there in 1932. She was engaged at Bayreuth the following year and in 1934 sang Sieglinde and Gutrune at the Festival (with Frida Leider as Brünnhilde). Her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York on February 2, 1935 as Sieglinde is the stuff of legend with critics and public in raptures over her performance. Four days later, she sang Isolde at the Met and over the following two months made her role debuts as Brünnhilde (Die Walküre & Götterdämmerung) and Kundry. She made her Covent Garden debut on May 18, 1936 as Isolde, with Melchior as Tristan and Fritz Reiner conducting, followed by a Ring cycle with Beecham in the pit. Flagstad was in America when the second World War broke out and was the object of huge public opprobrium when she chose to return to her seriously ill husband in German occupied Norway. Her international career resumed only after his death, in 1947. Two years later she sang her 150th Isolde in a performance at Covent Garden and in 1950 gave the world premiere of Strauss’ Vier letzte Lieder with Furtwängler in the Royal Albert Hall. Repeatedly coaxed out of retirement, in 1958 Flagstad sang Fricka in Solti’s Rheingold recording for Decca. She was the first director of the Norwegian National Opera.
There is a wealth of recorded material featuring Kirsten Flagstad, most famously the Tristan recording conducted by Furtwängler in 1952, with Ludwig Suthaus
Mild und leise Tristan und Isolde recorded in 1935 c. Hans Lange
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqtII_XdQN4
Flagstad and Schorr in an excerpt from Die Walküre Act 3, recorded live in San Francisco in 1936 c. Gaetano Merola https://pastdaily.com/2015/09/27/kirsten-flagstad-and-frederich-schorr-in-recital-1936-past-daily-weekend-gramophone/ Be prepared for a large cut near the end!
Flagstad and Melchior in an excerpt from Lohengrin Act 3, recorded in 1940 c. Edwin McArthur, her recital accompanist and biographer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vbDMG886lo
Vier letzte Lieder Strauss, Philharmonia Orchestra c. Wilhelm Furtwängler 1950 (live recording) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUl8IxU5zsM
Erbarme dich Bach St. Matthew Passion, Philharmonia Orchestra
c. Walter Susskind 1950 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv_s641HLY4
Flagstad’s advice to young singers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PjMukkeG9s
The Kirsten Flagstad museum in Hamar, north of Oslo: https://kirsten-flagstad.no/en
Kirsten Flagstad as Isolde
