I’m going to try to post this rather quickly as I haven’t posted for a little while. Rather than do a lot of interpretation, I will give some biographical information at the end. I will say what I have and continue to write, there are no voices like this today. No one can sing this duet in this way today.
Here are Hilde Zadek and Anton Dermota singing the same duet. See what you think about them, and remember that this recording is about 30 years later than the Lehmann/Tauber recording.
Glück, das mir verblieb (Marietta’s Lied)
Glück, das mir verblieb,
rück zu mir, mein treues Lieb.
Abend sinkt im Hag
bist mir Licht und Tag.
Bange pochet Herz an Herz
Hoffnung schwingt sich himmelwärts.
Wie wahr, ein traurig Lied.
Das Lied vom treuen Lieb,
das sterben muss.
Ich kenne das Lied.
Ich hört es oft in jungen,
in schöneren Tagen.
Es hat noch eine Strophe–
weiß ich sie noch?
Naht auch Sorge trüb,
rück zu mir, mein treues Lieb.
Neig dein blaß Gesicht
Sterben trennt uns nicht.
Mußt du einmal von mir gehn,
glaub, es gibt ein Auferstehn.
Marietta’s aria from Die Tote Stadt
Joy, that near to me remains,
Come to me, my true love.
Night sinks into the grove
You are my light and day.
Anxiously beats heart on heart
Hope itself soars heavenward.
How true, a sad song.
The song of true love,
that must die.
I know the song.
I heard it often in younger,
in better days.
It has yet another verse–
Do I know it still?
Though sorrow becomes dark,
Come to me, my true love.
Lean (to me) your pale face
Death will not separate us.
If you must leave me one day,
Believe, there is an afterlife.
Korngold
Erich Wolfgang Korngold (May 29, 1897 – November 29, 1957) was an Austrian-born composer and conductor. A child prodigy, he became one of the most important and influential composers in the history of Hollywood. He was a noted pianist and composer of classical music, along with music for Hollywood films, and the first composer of international stature to write Hollywood scores.
Korngold played his cantata Gold for Gustav Mahler in 1909; Mahler called him a “musical genius” and recommended he study with composer Alexander von Zemlinsky. Richard Strauss also spoke highly of the youth, and along with Mahler told Korngold’s father there was no benefit in having his son enroll in a music conservatory since his abilities were already years ahead of what he could learn there.
Korngold was active in the theatre throughout Europe while in his 20s. After the success of his opera, Die tote Stadt, which he conducted in many opera houses, he developed a passion for the music of Johann Strauss, Jr., and managed to exhume a number of lost scores. He orchestrated and staged them using new concepts. Both A Night in Venice and Cagliostro in Vienna are Korngold re-creations, these were the works that first drew the attention of Max Reinhardt to Korngold.
By this point Korngold had reached the zenith of his fame as a composer of opera and concert music. Composers such as Richard Strauss and Giacomo Puccini heaped praise on him, and many famous conductors, soloists and singers added his works to their repertoires. He began collaborating with Reinhardt on many productions, including a collection of little-known Strauss pieces that they arranged and titled Waltzes From Vienna. It was retitled The Great Waltz and became the basis for a 1938 British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and a film by the same name in the U.S, starring Luise Rainer. Korngold conducted staged versions in Los Angeles in 1949 and 1953.
At the request of director Max Reinhardt, and due to the rise of the Nazi regime, Korngold moved to the U.S. in 1934 to write music scores for films. His first was Reinhardt’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1935), which was well received by critics. He subsequently wrote scores for such films as Captain Blood (1935), which helped boost the career of its starring newcomer, Errol Flynn. His score for Anthony Adverse (1936) won an Oscar, and was followed two years later with another Oscar for The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).
Overall, he wrote the score for 16 Hollywood films, receiving two more nominations. Along with Max Steiner and Alfred Newman, he is one of the founders of film music. Although his late classical Romantic compositions were no longer as popular when he died in 1957, his music underwent a resurgence of interest in the 1970s beginning with the release of the RCA Red Seal album “The Sea Hawk: the Classic Film Scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold” (1972). This album was hugely popular and really ignited interest in other film music of his (and other composers like Max Steiner) and in his concert music, which often incorporated popular themes from his film scores (a good example being the Violin Concerto in D, Op. 35).
Lotte Lehmann
Charlotte “Lotte” Lehmann (February 27, 1888 – August 26, 1976) was a German soprano who was especially associated with German repertory. She gave memorable performances in the operas of Richard Strauss, Richard Wagner, Ludwig van Beethoven, Puccini, Mozart, and Massenet. The Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier, Sieglinde in Die Walküre and the title-role in Fidelio are considered her greatest roles. During her long career, Lehmann also made more than five hundred recordings. Her performances in the world of Lieder are considered among the best ever recorded.
Life and career
Lehmann was born in Perleberg, Province of Brandenburg. After studying in Berlin with Mathilde Mallinger, she made her debut at the Hamburg Opera in 1910 as a page in Wagner’s Lohengrin. In 1914, she gave her debut as Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg at the Vienna Court Opera – the later Vienna State Opera –, which she joined in 1916. She quickly established herself as one of the company’s brightest, most beloved stars in roles such as Elisabeth in Tannhäuser and Elsa in Lohengrin. She created roles in the world premieres of a number of operas by Richard Strauss, including the Composer in Ariadne auf Naxos in 1916 (later she sang the title-role in this opera), the Dyer’s Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten in 1919 and Christine in Intermezzo in 1924. Her other Strauss roles were the title-roles in Arabella and in Der Rosenkavalier (earlier in her career, she had also sung the role of Sophie and Octavian; when she finally added the Marschallin to her repertoire, she became the first soprano in history to have sung all three female lead roles in Der Rosenkavalier). Her Puccini roles at the Vienna State Opera included the title-roles in Tosca, Manon Lescaut, Madama Butterfly, Suor Angelica, Turandot, Mimi in La bohème and Giorgetta in Il tabarro. In her 21 years with the company, Lehmann sang more than fifty different roles at the Vienna State Opera, including Marie/Marietta in Die tote Stadt, the title-roles in La Juive by Fromental Halévy, Mignon by Ambroise Thomas, and Manon by Jules Massenet, Charlotte in Werther, Marguerite in Faust, Tatiana in Eugene Onegin and Lisa in The Queen of Spades. In the meantime she had made her debut in London in 1914, and from 1924 to 1935 she performed regularly at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden where aside from her famous Wagner roles and the Marschallin she also sang Desdemona in Otello and Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni. She appeared regularly at the Salzburg Festival from 1926 to 1937, performing with Arturo Toscanini, among other conductors. She also gave recitals there accompanied at the piano by the conductor Bruno Walter.
In 1930, Lehmann made her American debut in Chicago as Sieglinde in Wagner’s Die Walküre. She returned to the United States every season and also performed several times in South America. Before Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Lehmann emigrated to the United States, and here the story becomes less happy. For those who want to know more about Lehmann’s relationship with the Nazi regime, here is a link to more information . Lehmann Göring conversation I have to say that when I read this, I was severely disappointed. Lehmann had made quite a stir about her lack of involvement in this regime, and each individual must decided for him or herself if this information colors her art.After her retirement from the recital stage in 1951, Lehmann taught master classes at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California, which she helped found in 1947. She also gave master classes in New York City’s Town Hall (for the Manhattan School of Music), Chicago, London, Vienna, and other cities. For her contribution to the recording industry, Lehmann has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Richard Tauber
Richard Tauber (May 16, 1891 – January 8 , 1948) was an Austrian tenor and film actor.
Richard Tauber was born in Linz, Austria, to Elisabeth Seifferth, a widow and an actress who played soubrette roles at the local theatre, and Richard Anton Tauber, an actor; his parents were not married and his father was reportedly unaware of the birth as he was touring North America at the time. The child was given the name Richard Denemy(Denemy was his mother’s maiden name); he was sometimes known as He was adopted by his father in 1913, his legal name became Richard Denemy-Tauber.
After an intense period of vocal training under Carl Beines, he made his public debut at a concert at Freiburg on May 17, 1912. That year his father was appointed Intendant of the Municipal Theatre in Chemnitz and was therefore in a position to arrange for Tauber to appear as Tamino in The Magic Flute on March 2, 1913. Some weeks later, on April 16, he played Max in Der Freischütz, a performance which was attended by Nikolaus Count von Seebach of the Dresden Opera who had already offered Tauber a five-year contract, commencing on August 1. The Baron encouraged Tauber to take small roles with other companies to broaden his experience. During his years in Dresden, Tauber acquired his reputation as a remarkably quick student: he learned Gounod’s Faust in 48 hours, Bacchus in Richard Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos overnight, to the amazement of the composer, who conducted the performance (in Berlin). People started to call him “the SOS Tenor”. He saved the German premiere of Puccini’s Turandot in 1926 at the Staatsoper Dresden, learning the role of Calaf in three days when tenor Curt Taucher fell ill.
Following some guest appearances at the Wiener Volksoper in 1920, he made his Vienna State Opera debut on June 16 in La bohème, substituting for an indisposed Alfred Piccaver. In 1922, Tauber signed a five-year contract with the Vienna State Opera and appearances with the Berlin State Opera followed; for many years he appeared with both companies – four months with each, leaving four months for concerts and guest appearances with other companies and touring abroad. He sang the tenor role in many operas, including Don Giovanni, The Bartered Bride, Tosca, Mignon, Faust, Carmen and Die Fledermaus, as well as newer works such as Erich Korngold’s Die tote Stadt and Wilhelm Kienzl’s Der Evangelimann. It was in June 1919 that he made the first of over seven hundred gramophone records. All his vocal recordings were made for the Odeon Records label, and after 1933 for the associated Parlophone label. Tauber had a lyrical, flexible tenor voice, and he sang with a warm, elegant legato. His excellent breath control gave him a wonderful head voice and messa di voce with a superb pianissimo. He was elegant in appearance too – although he had a slight squint in his right eye; he disguised it by wearing a monocle which, when accompanied by a top hat, added to the elegant effect.
Tauber first performed in an operetta by Franz Lehár at the Volksbuhne in Berlin in 1920. This was Zigeunerliebe, in which he also appeared in Linz and Salzburg in 1921. In 1922 he was offered the role of Armand in Lehár’s Frasquita at the Theater an der Wien, and the experience was a resounding success. This excursion into operetta was looked down on by some, but did Tauber no harm. It gave him a new audience. It revived Lehár’s flagging career as a composer of operetta. In the future, Lehár composed a number of operettas with roles written specifically for Richard Tauber, including Paganini (1925, although he was unavailable for the Vienna premiere, and first sang it in Berlin in 1926), Der Zarewitsch (1927), Friederike (1928), The Land of Smiles (1929) with the famous aria “Dein ist mein ganzes Herz”, Schön ist die Welt (1930), and Giuditta (1934).[13] The hit songs usually occurred in the second act and were informally known as Tauberlieder. Tauber appeared in a number of films, both in Germany and later in England. He provided a ‘voice-over’, singing the title song in the otherwise silent film I Kiss Your Hand, Madame (1929).
In 1931, Tauber made his London debut in operetta, and London appearances became a regular event; he also toured the United States in this year. In 1933, Tauber was assaulted in the street by a group of Nazi Brownshirts because of his Jewish ancestry, and he decided to leave Germany for his native Austria, where he continued to sing at the Vienna State Opera right up to the Anschluss in March 1938. In the mid-1930s, he made several musical films in England, and at the premiere of her film Mimi in April 1935, he met the English actress Diana Napier (1905–1982); they were married on 20 June 1936, only after protracted legal proceedings to secure an Austrian divorce from Vanconti. Napier appeared in three of his British films: Heart’s Desire (1935), Land Without Music and Pagliacci (both 1936).
In 1938, he made his London operatic debut in Die Zauberflöte under Sir Thomas Beecham. Earlier that year, the Nazi government of Germany annexed Austria and Tauber left for good. In response, the Nazis withdrew the Taubers’ passports and right of abode; because this left the couple technically stateless, Tauber applied for British citizenship. He was touring South Africawhen World War II broke out, and returned to Switzerland until receiving the papers allowing him to enter the UK in March 1940.Despite receiving lucrative offers from the United States, he remained in the UK for the entire war. There was little opera staged in wartime Britain so he made a living by singing, conducting and making gramophone records and radio broadcasts. He even composed English operettas, together with the lyric writer Fred S. Tysh, from one of which, Old Chelsea, the song “My Heart and I” became one of his most popular English recordings. It was only these English records that brought him any royalties; for his earlier recordings he had been paid for each performance and he had been compelled to leave his savings behind in Austria. By now he was so crippled by arthritis that he could no longer move into and away from the microphone for softer and louder notes. A small trolley was built on rubber wheels so the engineers could silently roll him back and forth while recording.
In 1946, Tauber appeared in a Broadway adaptation of The Land of Smiles (Yours is my Heart) which flopped, leaving him with huge personal losses and in debt to the backers. He was thus forced to tour the United States, Canada, Central and South America for six months to recoup losses, with Arpad Sandor and George Schick serving as his accompanists, and Neil Chotem as assisting artist. In April 1947, Tauber returned to London and sought medical attention for a persistent cough. He was eventually diagnosed with lung cancer: one lung was already useless and the other nearly so.