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Lotte Schöne and Richard Tauber
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| To the record-buying public of today the name of Lotte Schöne is, I fancy, considerably less familiar than the exquisite quality of her singing would really warrant.
Perhaps this is because a happy family life and belonging to a unified operatic ensemble always meant more to her than pursuing the path of a 'star'; perhaps because Nazi persecution disrupted her life at the peak of her success - I do not know.
The fact remains, though, that she was an artist of exceptional charm and attainment, a beautiful woman with a beautiful voice.
She was born in Vienna on December 15th 1891 - (it is remarkable how few 'Viennese' singers have actually been Viennese!) - and after studying with a teacher named Johannes Ress she was given her first engagement by the Vienna Volksoper. She made her debut as one of the four Bridesmaids in Der Freischütz During these years she had of course given many guest performances elsewhere, including Covent Garden, where she made her debut in 1927 as Marzelline, and shortly afterwards stole the show with her Liù in the British premiere of Turandot - Eva Turner, let it be said, had not yet assumed the title-role there! Schöne had also become a firm favourite of the Paris public, and it was there that she made her new home. Austria was still open to her, and in 1934 she played Zerlina to Pinza's Don Giovanni in the celebrated new production conducted by Bruno Walter. When the Nazis overran first Austria and then France, she did not seek refuge in America as so many of her colleagues had, but remained in hiding in the South of France. She managed to survive, as did her family, and in 1948 she made one more appearance as Susanna in Berlin - prompted, I would imagine, by a desire to lay old ghosts - but her career had really ended ten years earlier. The present selection of Lotte Schöne's recordings concentrates on Viennese operetta, a style to which the ease of her singing and the charm of her stage personality made her peculiarly well suited. Apart from the various operetta roles which came her way during her early days at the Volksoper, she appeared during her prime in several outstanding productions - as Adele in Rheinhardt's production of Die Fledermaus at the Théâtre Pigalle in Paris, as Annina in Eine Nacht in Venedig in Berlin, as Princess Maria Elisa in Paganini in Brussels and as the title heroine of Kálmán's Das Veilchen von Montmartre at the Théâtre Porte Saint-Martin in Paris to name but a few. When the war was over Lotte Schöne resumed her life as a resident of Paris and it was there that she died on December 23rd, 1977, a few days after her 86th birthday. Richard Tauber was born in the Austrian city of Linz on May 16th 1891, and being the illegitimate offspring of a straight actor and an operetta soubrette, his was a classic case of stage blood in the veins. His childhood consisted largely of going wherever one or other of his parents might happen to be, picking up a bit of schooling here and there, but from an early age he displayed unusual musical talent, and in due course his father steered him towards the Frankfurt Conservatory, where he studied piano, conducting and composition. It was always his primary ambition, though, to be a singer, and after various vicissitudes he ended up in the hands of an outstanding teacher, Carl Beines. In March 1913, while he was still only 21, Tauber made his debut as Tamino in By the time he was 30 Tauber was widely regarded as the outstanding Mozart tenor of his generation, and for the lyrical roles of Verdi, Puccini, Bizet and so on he was at the top of the German operatic tree. Eyebrows were raised when, within weeks of signing his first contract with the Vienna State Opera, he slipped in a week of performances in Lehár's operetta Frasquita at the Theater an der Wien. His highly personal handling of the hit song 'Hab' ein blaues Himmelbett', which, in the German original, has just about the most suggestive text in operetta, made him an overnight sensation, and from then on his time was more or less equally divided between opera and operetta. He maintained his guest contracts with the two State Operas, but saw to it that several months a year were free for the lighter muse, and it was in 1925, with Those who wonder why Tauber 'descended' to operetta do not understand what made the man tick - nor, to my mind, do they understand operetta. He loved the razzmatazz of the operetta world, he loved being a public figure, and he loved singing music which went to the hearts of his listeners. Stylistically, of course, he sang it differently from Mozart, but in operetta, too, his exceptional musicianship was always given free rein. Above all, he was a complete master of the subtle art of Viennese 'rubato', that almost imperceptible elasticity of rhythm which keeps the best operetta music always up in the air, never down on the floor; and whether the voice has a smile or a tear in it, he sings every phrase as if he means it. Though Tauber seldom appeared on stage in operettas by other composers than Lehár, Joh. Strauss or himself (he was no mean composer), he seized any opportunity to record the songs of Kálmán, Fall or Oscar Strauss. He was a fine conductor, too, and it was while he was conducting Kálmán's Herbstmanöver at the Theater an der Wien that he met the soprano Carlotta Vanconti, who became his first wife - as it turned out, one of Tauber's most expensive mistakes. |
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