Lilli Lehmann (1848 - 1929)

Note by John Steane











A number of famous singers, including some very great ones, born in the decade 1840 to 1850 and in their prime during the 19th century, lived long enough to make gramophone records in the 20th . Among these are Adelina Patti, Emma Albani, Francesco Tamagno, Victor Maurel, Charles Santley and the extraordinary soprano celebrated in this present collection. Looking at that list and noting Lehmann’s place in it, we prepare to make the sort of adjustments in listening and judging that may become necessary where old records (and particularly old records of already old singers) are concerned. In such cases, the unaccustomed listener is often caught up in a confusion of wonder and worry, glory and frustration. The writer’s own first experience of Patti’s records, for instance, was of their being returned by an angry woman to the record shop where she had bought them: she complained that they were so bad, they couldn’t possibly be of Patti and must therefore be frauds. It is unlikely that anyone would have a similar first reaction to the records of Lehmann: they are patently the work of a great singer. Still, it is as well to bear certain facts in mind.

Lilli Lehmann (not to be confused with Lotte, who was unrelated to her and forty years younger) was born on November 24, 1848, and 58 when she made most of the recordings heard here. She had made her debut in 1865, and had developed from a light soprano to one who was habitually entrusted with the heaviest Wagnerian roles in some of the greatest opera houses in the world. It was an unsparing career in which she sang 170 parts in opera as well as taking a full share of concert work. It would not be surprising if we were to approach her records with a degree of trepidation. What we actually hear is more than merely surprising. They continually amaze us with the sheer quality - the clarity, steadiness, power and flexibility - of her voice, with the stamina which takes her through Donna Anna’s Vengeance aria and Fidelio’s ‘Abscheulicher!’, with the delicacy she could command in her Lieder singing, and with the sureness of intonation, which never falters. We also recognise an artist, warmly expressive and scrupulous in detail. And then there are some perplexities. Why is it, for instance, that a singer with such exceptionally high standards in most matters of taste and technique so often offends modern ears with a way of approaching notes from below? Several instances occur in the opening phrases of ‘Ach, ich liebte’, the very first track in this recital. It appears to have been a feature of German style, persisting in the next generation where we find it from time to time in the recorded singing of Elisabeth Schumann, Frida Leider and Lotte Lehmann. In Lilli it is more pronounced, almost as though a condition of the grandeur and authority. Those things (the grand manner and authoritative ‘image’) are mildly subverted too when, under pressure (often of a declamatory type), the lower middle register is exposed. The two dramatic solos mentioned earlier, the Don Giovanni and Fidelio arias (tracks 7 and 14) show up this vulnerable area in the voice, the passage left weak by the withdrawal of the chest tone which had, none too graciously, supported the lower notes. It must point to a flaw in the production which has served for all these years and yet leaves a weakness at this well-known danger-point so near the very centre of the voice’s range.

It is as well, I think, to face these matters from the start. There is still talk of ‘the golden age of singing’, placed around the decade 1890-1900, which is also the decade of Lehmann’s prime. She represents, after all, a kind of ideal, handed down from the 19th century to the 20th : the soprano who was thoroughly trained in Mozart, had the arts of coloratura at her command, and as the supreme test could sing equally well Bellini’s Norma and Wagner’s Isolde. Yet these ‘gods’ were really quite human, fallible artists. We have an image of Lehmann as titanic in her great roles, and it is an image that is transmitted to us by no-one more influentially and enthusiastically than the New York critic, W. J. Henderson. Of her he wrote: "She was of the heroic mould. When she sang ‘Je suis Titania’ you felt like saying ‘Yes, your majesty’... Her Violetta was far larger than the frame in which the opera set it ... Her Donna Anna in Don Giovanni was supremely authoritative because she could deliver with irresistible power a dramatic recitative such as ‘Don Ottavio, son morta!’ and with flawless technique and style the florid aria following it ... When the curtain rose on the second Act of Die Walküre and disclosed her as the young goddess, her radiant face and splendid figure, both alive with an elemental beauty, sent a thrill through the house which was intensified fourfold when the clarion tones rang out in the ‘Hojo-to-ho’". But that was written in 1928, and if we are impressed by it (as we should be) we should also take note as we look into the archives and find this from Henderson reporting on Lehmann’s Norma of February 28, 1890. After acknowledging that she won the enthusiasm of a public who had not heard ‘so excellent an exhibition of this sort’ in ‘the old Italian opera’, wrote: "It must be noted, however, that Fr. Lehmann took many of the elaborate ornamental passages at a very moderate tempo and sang them with evident labour, thus depriving them of much of that brilliance which the smooth, mellow Italian voices impart to them". This kind of commentary was never remembered when Lehmann’s ‘titanic’ Norma was invoked to put Ponselle’s success with the role into perspective, just as later Ponselle’s transpositions were never recalled when her ‘golden-voiced’ Norma was summoned from the mighty past to confront Callas.

The point is that truly great singers do not need to have their faults overlooked; their greatness survives. The greatness of Lehmann is manifest, even in these old records made when she was nearly 60. And behind the records are the facts of a great career.

This took an exemplary form. Born into a musical family, she was brought up in Prague by her mother, Marie Loew, an admired professional singer and harpist. Her voice was originally small, inferior to her sister Marie’s. At Prague she sang supporting roles together with some, like the Queen in Les Huguenots , which extended her boldly. A season at Danzig (where she was learning a new role each week) and another at Leipzig were followed by an invitation to Berlin. While there, she renewed her association with Wagner, a friend of her mother, who engaged her for the opening season of 1876 at Bayreuth. Her roles were Woglinde, Helmweige and the Woodbird, but she was intimately involved in the work of the Festival and has left a vivid first-hand account. In Stockholm she sang regularly as their leading soprano, and her international career began in earnest in 1880 with a debut at Her Majesty’s in London. At Covent Garden she sang Isolde in 1884, appearing there for the last time in 1899. It was at the Metropolitan, New York, that she enjoyed probably her greatest triumphs of all, singing the great Wagnerian roles with Jean de Reszke until the new century brought ‘the golden age’ to a neatly-timed end.

In the new century her appearances were increasingly rare and noted events. In retirement she herself became a legendary figure, the most sought-after of teachers with a fearsome reputation for uncompromising strictness. She was also a leading figure in the creation of the Mozart festivals at Salzburg. In the first of these, in 1906, two operas were given, Die Zauberflöte under Mahler and Don Giovanni for which she was responsible. She complained that Mahler took up more than his share of rehearsal- time and that Don Giovanni was rehearsed principally in her sitting-room. But she presented the opera with a remarkable cast. With Johanna Gadski as Elvira, Geraldine Farrar (then a new star at the Metropolitan, but also Lehmann’s most successful pupil) as Zerlina and herself as Anna, rarely can Don Giovanni have been given with a more impressive line-up, in the women’s roles at least. In 1910 she capped this with further performances, adding Antonio Scotti to the cast in the name-part and Karl Muck conducting, and a Zauberflöte of her own with Gadski, Hempel, Slezak and Mayr and herself as First Lady.

Of the records by which she is now remembered she seems not to have thought much: not enough, at least, to warrant discussion in her comprehensive autobiography, in English My Path through Life (1914). In that, the imperious, somewhat hard character of story and reputation softens sufficiently for the reader to see a woman who felt deeply, cared loyally for the people she loved and passionately upheld the highest artistic standards. The records remain an extraordinary document. Seven sessions have been identified ( Record Collector , Vol. 26, 9 & 10) between June 1906 and late 1907, with 42 titles in all. She was a hard worker in the studios and in each of two sessions in 1907 made seven published titles. The twenty heard on the present CD would be generally agreed to represent the best, and they include the single Wagnerian excerpt among the published items (among the few unpublished, tantalisingly, is a ‘Liebestod’!). When one goes, in listening, from the intimacy of Schumann’s ‘Dein Bildnis wunderselig’ (‘Intermezzo’, Liederkreis op.39, track 11) to the proud virtuosity of ‘Martern aller Arten’ (2) and then to the fierce spirit of Leonore’s recitative and aria in Fidelio (14), the journey is itself a thing of wonder. The duets with her niece, Hedwig Helbig, too: so careful in detail and in balance, the big voice not overwhelming the much lighter and younger one. The Handel aria (8) is a wonderful example of well-practised runs executed without the aid of ‘separation’ devices (let alone the horror of the intrusive ‘h’). And the Traviata records, so tender ... and impossible to think of as the voice of a singer who on other nights might be thrilling the house, as Henderson said, with her ‘Hojo-to-ho’. She was indeed an amazing artist, and if ‘the golden age’ was indeed truly golden it is singers of this stature that one would expect to find in its ranks.


© 2005 John Steane

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