Vilhelm Herold

Note by Morten Hein











Even if few today are familiar with his voice, the Danish tenor Vilhelm Herold is a legend in Denmark. In other countries he might only be remembered as a guest singer at performances in the era immediately prior to the First World War. However, from the number of his recordings alone, all of which were made during the earliest period of recorded sound, it can be deduced that he was recognised and appreciated by his recording company.

Vilhelm Herold was born on 19th March 1865 in Hasle on the island of Bornholm. He was educated at Jellinge Teacher's College between 1883 and 1886 where he gave his first performances as a member of a song quartet. In 1889 he became a teacher in Copenhagen but even then he never lost sight of his goal and took lessons in singing and acting. At his first audition at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen neither the theatre management nor the composer N.W. Gade found his neutral appearance suitable for the stage and turned him down. And yet it was only the following year that Johan Svendsen, the Norwegian composer and director of the opera in the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, recommended him for a debut at the theatre. His operatic career therefore started on 10th February 1893 with the title part of Faust and this was quickly followed, in the same year, with an appearance by invitation at the World Fair in Chicago.

Herold was a lyric tenor who used his voice without any overt mannerisms. He possessed a rare timbre in a period where the powerful voice was the fashion both in Danish opera and elsewhere. His athletic figure was perfectly suited for the stage. The eyes were impressive, the mouth full of expression, and his neutral face was a perfect background for the masks demanded by his characters. However, one of Herold's most unique talents in an era where, at least in Denmark, a conventional attitude to opera existed, was the ability to fuse music and drama into a realistic truth never seen before him in his country. Some of his critics even claimed that he was a better actor than singer. Others however recognised the quality in his voice, one of whom recalled: "I heard him singing the first time at an evening in a private home. He was accompanied by a harp and sang songs of the composer Weyse with a soft melting sound to his voice, the precise interpretation. Not even the composer could have asked for anything more beautiful, more honest. He grew from character to character. Some days we were troubled by elements of weakness in the voice. Then he realised that his musical education was not yet finished. Much still had to be done to develop the bright timbre and the fundamentals had been neglected. He therefore went to Paris and came home victorious as never before. Whatever he did the result was a sell-out."

Herold's effort was a milestone in the development of Danish opera. He demanded that the atmosphere of the moment should colour the voice. The Spanish petty officer Don José in Carmen for example was therefore a completely different person to the young soldier Turiddu in Cavalleria Rusticana. His characters were living human beings with characteristics created from his own persona and from his experience of life. They were original in concept and spiritual in performance. Behind the results was a striving that enabled him to master his means, but as all elements of preparation were removed from the appearance his performance seemed to have been created without any previous struggle. His motto was: "The sentiment - not only the voice."

After continuing his studies with great teachers such as Devillier to improve his technique, Herold's success in Denmark was assured. However, in 1903 he left his permanent position with the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen and in the same year went to Paris to study with Giovanni Sbriglia to further develop his voice. Sbriglia had also taught the de Reszke brothers. This trip must have been rather successful, as a review in London in 1907 referred to Herold's similarity to Jean de Reszke. From that time onward he appeared only as a guest in the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen and as competition he even set up his own opera company in a theatre in the city for the 1910-11 season.

In the early part of this century it was almost impossible to sing opera in the original language in Copenhagen. One particular guest performance, due to be given in this city by a Danish singer who was resident in a foreign country, even had to be cancelled when it became apparent that he wanted only to sing in German. This must have been one of the main reasons why Herold recorded mostly in Danish. It must be noted however that Herold's Danish language is often twisted to fit into the pattern and sound of the original language. His Danish singing sounds very French, not only in the way he treats his language but also in his style of singing. This probably reflects the time he spent studying with French teachers.

Herold appeared in quite a few foreign opera houses where he sang in the original languages. He worked his way around Northern Europe and was welcomed as a guest in Berlin, Budapest, Dresden, Kristiania (Oslo), London, Prague, Stockholm and Stuttgart. As he did not care to reveal any decline in his voice he left opera at the peak of his career having created twenty-nine characters. The outbreak of the First World War must have severely limited the opportunities to travel around in Europe and may therefore have influenced his decision to stop singing professionally. After thirteen farewell performances in which he sang a variety of roles, he gave his last performance on his 50th birthday in 1915 as Pedro in Tiefland. The composer of Tiefland, Eugéne d'Albert wrote: "Sie sind das Ideal eines Pedro".

Although most contemporary accounts claim that he retired at his best, some give evidence that his voice had lost its youth by around 1911. Indeed, the recordings from his later career do show a lesser ability to achieve his former standard. This could however also be explained by his legendary 'Gramo fright'.

Jerrold Northrop Moore makes reference to this fear in A Voice in Time (London, Hamilton, 1976):

One indication of the growing seriousness of the gramophone business was the atmosphere of grim purpose and even worry that now overtook even distinguished performers when they faced a recording session. In February 1907 Fred Gaisberg had witnessed a memorable exhibition of studio nerves from a very eminent singer at the peak of his career: 'The Van Dyke Opera Season' was held at Covent Garden. This terminated suddenly and I engaged Vilhelm Herold, the Danish tenor to sing for us some excerpts from Lohengrin. For this purpose I also engaged the German Chorus... The Sound Wave reported on the session: Herr Herold... put himself on a very sparing diet for two days previous, in order to record the best possible voice. He arrived with the full intention of finishing his six songs, but after two he pleaded that 'Gramo fright' had tired him, so that he was compelled to postpone the remaining songs.

The German chorus mentioned recorded with Herold on 19th February when three recordings were made, including the two Lohengrin arias on this disc. All three were published. The same night however, every member of the German party drowned on their way back to Germany in a shipwreck off Ostende. Given the fact that most appearances he made in London were in Wagner operas, it might be assumed that he was the preferred Wagner tenor in Denmark. This however is not the case as his rival, Peter Cornelius assumed this mantle, even though Herold was called upon to perform at Wagner's centenary birthday performance at the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen.

The ability to create a character was a central factor in Herold's art and this skill can be taken as a parallel to his talent as a sculptor. He had his debut at the Danish Royal Academy of Arts in 1906. Later he intended to use what he had earned from his operatic career to establish himself as a sculptor but private circumstances prevented him from reaching this goal. Instead it was as a teacher in song and as a teacher in drama at the Royal Theatre that he proceeded. In a short period from 1922 to 1924 he was also director for the opera at the Royal Theatre. In that period he staged Louise and Boris Godunov. He was also a teacher to a generation of Danish singers including for example Lauritz Melchior. He died on 15th December 1937 in Copenhagen and is buried in Hasle where his Memorial Collection is also located.

Herold started to record in 1899 when he was 34. The first session took place in Copenhagen where W. Sinkler Darby was the recording engineer. During his career more than 200 recordings were made over a total of 42 sessions, all of which resulted in 135 titles being published. The recording sessions took place in Copenhagen, London and Berlin and with only a handful of recording engineers: the Gaisberg brothers, Darby, Pearse and Hancox. Herold's last recording was made in Copenhagen on 30th October 1914. All recordings were made by the Gramophone Company except for ten cylinders. They were made by Dansk Fonograf Magasin and were also issued by Pathé.

In his time Herold was extremely popular as a recording artist and as a result his records are still to be quite easily found. Through the Danish HMV archives it is even possible to track down the sales - at least the Danish sales. Even though he stopped singing in 1915 his records sold well into the 1930s. Even as late as 1946, two hundred copies of the two duets with Helge Nissen were made for the Danish market and 197 were sold. The range of repertoire he recorded is quite extensive: some 60 titles in opera as well as a similar volume of non-operatic material. The works themselves range from Danish operas (some are forgotten even in Denmark) through the international mainstream operatic repertoire, to songs, hymns and Lieder from a number of different countries.

In some of his recordings other singers appeared. Herold must have extended a strong influence as they often recorded better with him than in solo recordings. Perfect examples are the duets with Helge Nissen. Unfortunately he never recorded with Kirsten Flagstad even though she made her debut in 1913 in Oslo at a Herold guest performance of Tiefland.

Herold's favourite performance was without any doubt a command performance (see self-caricature) ordered by King Edward VII at Buckingham Palace in 1905. In an interview many years later Herold described this event:

"A banquet was given for some 300, selected from the highest ranks in the country. Madame Melba, the Russian violinist Micha Elman, Caruso and I were to perform at the banquet. We were accompanied by the Italian composer Tosti. We came to the concert hall before the distinguished party and were seated on four golden chairs - like canaries in a golden cage. I was rather anxious but Caruso stayed calm in his usual way. When a waiter passed he called him loudly with his elementary English: Drink! Drink! The waiter was taken by surprise but brought an ice drink from which Caruso sipped and then put the glass beside his chair.

When the royal party entered accompanied by the distinguished ladies and noblemen of the highest rank of which many were in colourful uniforms Caruso whispered very loudly to me: Listen, tonight we are at the comedy.

Later while Madame Melba sang he occasionally took his glass and cleared his throat. Luckily he did not go as far as I once saw. In singing Aida he suddenly cleared his throat with a glass of water on stage and afterward spat the water across a bush and down into the prompt-box and then continued with his high notes."

In 1983 - 47 years after the death of Herold - a memorial collection was formed in his native town of Hasle on the island of Bornholm. The collection consists of documents relating to the singer as well as a collection of pictures - photographs and paintings - and recordings. Some of Herold's costumes are on display and some of his sculptures can be seen as well. The memorial collection reflects the close links between Herold and his native town.

The State and University Library was established in Aarhus as a research and legal deposit library in 1902. Later, when the new university in Aarhus opened it also became the university library.

The State and University Library has amongst its other tasks been appointed as the centre in the Danish library network for audio-visual collections. One department is the State Media Archive where every broadcast given on Danish radio and television is collected. This department also collects other types of audio-visual documents.

The State Media Archive is working not only on the preservation and presentation of its collections but is also actively involved in the development of new IT services inside its scope. At present it is the leader in the JUKEBOX project co-operating with Discoteca di Stato in Rome and The National Sound Archive in London. The project is on digital storage of recorded sound and sound transmission via an ISDN network and is partly funded by the European Commission.

In 1989 the National Record Collection, the national institution for published sound recordings, was transferred from the National Museum to The State and University Library. This collection was established in 1913 and is the most complete collection of Danish recorded sound. Furthermore the library has a large collection of non-Danish material from the early age of recorded sound.

The recordings presented here have been transferred from records in the collection of the State and University Library. This has been arranged in collaboration between the library and Nimbus Records.


© 1996 Morten Hein

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Unauthorised copying, public performance and broadcasting of this recording prohibited.