All these arias represent Lotte Lehmann at a high point in her career, not only vocally, but bearing in mind the experience she had gained as a singing actress.
She was admired as a principal soprano at the Hamburg Opera by colleagues, conductors and audiences alike, and was very happy there, until she was offered a contract with the Vienna Court Opera.
Then, in a matter of weeks on 4 October 1916, she suddenly became a star.
This happened because Richard Strauss insisted that she, and not the established soprano, must create the role of the Young Composer on the first night of his revised Ariadne auf Naxos.
So early a breakthrough at 'the Opera House on the Ring' was beyond most singers' wildest dreams, but for Lehmann it was reality.
She went from strength to strength and remained there, a much-loved leading soprano, until politics forced her to leave Europe in October 1937.
When it became known, in 1914, that Lotte Lehmann was moving from Hamburg to Vienna, she became what it known as a 'property' and the Pathé Record Company invited her to record for them.
Only two of probably six of these arias have survived but are not represented here.
Our concern is with a thoroughly representative selection of 20 sides from among the 48 she made for the Polydor Company of Berlin between 1916-1921.
As was customary at the time, no orchestra or conductor is credited, nor have exact recording dates been preserved.
The earliest source-disc is from 1916, and the last one from 1921.
Thereafter, and until 1933, Lotte Lehmann changed her loyalties from Polydor to Odeon.
|
