Lotte Lehmann
Encyclopedia
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
was considered her greatest role. 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.
. In 1926 she married Otto Krause, who died in 1939.
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 sang for the first time at the Vienna State Opera
, which she joined in 1916. There she sang the premieres of a number of operas by Richard Strauss
, including Ariadne auf Naxos
in 1916, Die Frau ohne Schatten
in 1919, Intermezzo
in 1924, and Arabella
in 1933, as well as Vienna premieres of several operas by Puccini
. She made her debut in London in 1914, and from 1924 to 1935 she performed regularly at the Royal Opera House
, Covent Garden
. 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 1936, while in Salzburg, she discovered the Trapp Family Singers, later made famous in the musical The Sound of Music
, and persuaded them to present their first public performance.
In 1930, Lehmann made her American debut in Chicago
as Sieglinde in Wagner's
Die Walküre
. Lehmann's other Wagnerian roles included Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
, Elsa in Lohengrin
, and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser
. She was also famous for her interpretation of Leonore in Beethoven's
Fidelio
. Just before Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Lehmann fled to the United States, where she continued to sing at the San Francisco Opera
and the Metropolitan Opera
until 1945.
In addition to her operatic work, Lehmann was a renowned singer of lieder, giving frequent recitals throughout her career. Beginning with her first recital tour to Australia
in 1937, she worked closely with the accompanist Paul Ulanowsky
. He remained her primary accompanist for concerts and master classes until her retirement fourteen years later.
She also made a foray into film acting, playing the mother of a Jewish cantor played by Danny Thomas in Big City
(1948), which also starred Robert Preston, George Murphy, Margaret O'Brien and Betty Garrett.
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 Chicago, London, Vienna, and other cities. For her contribution to the recording industry, Lehmann has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
at 1735 Vine St. However, her first name is misspelled there as "Lottie".
She was a prolific author, publishing a book of poems Verse in Prosa in the early 1920s, a novel, Orplid, mein Land in 1937, which appeared in English as Eternal Flight in 1937, and a book of memoirs, Anfang und Aufstieg (1937), which later appeared as On Wings of Song in the U.K. in 1938 and as Midway in My Song in the U.S. in 1938. She also published volumes on the interpretation of song and the interpretation of opera roles. Later books included Five Operas and Richard Strauss, known as Singing with Richard Strauss in the U.K., a second book of poems in 1969, and Eighteen Song Cycles in 1971, consisting of material drawn largely from earlier works.
Lehmann was an active painter in her retirement. Her painting included a series of twenty-four illustrations in tempera for each song of Schubert's Winterreise
.
_1989,_minr_844.jpg)
Lehmann died in 1976 at the age of 88 in Santa Barbara, California
. She is interred in the Zentralfriedhof
in Vienna, Austria.
was named in her honor.
The Lotte Lehmann Foundation
was established in 1995 to preserve and perpetuate Lotte Lehmann's legacy and at the same time to bring art song into the lives of as many people as possible. In 2011 the Lotte Lehmann League developed a new website in her honor: www.lottelehmannleague.org
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
who was especially associated with German repertory. She gave memorable performances in the operas of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, Richard Wagner, Ludwig van Beethoven, Puccini, Mozart and Massenet. The Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
was considered her greatest role. 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
Lehmann was born in Perleberg, Province of BrandenburgProvince of Brandenburg
The Province of Brandenburg was a province of the Kingdom of Prussia and the Free State of Prussia from 1815 to 1946.-History:The first people who are known to have inhabited Brandenburg were the Suevi. They were succeeded by the Slavonians, whom Henry II conquered and converted to Christianity in...
. In 1926 she married Otto Krause, who died in 1939.
After studying in Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
with Mathilde Mallinger
Mathilde Mallinger
Mathilde Mallinger was a famous Croatian lyric soprano opera singer.-Biography:Born as Mathilde Lichtenegger in Zagreb, the daughter of composer and teacher Vatroslav Lichtenegger, she studied singing with Giovanni Battista Gordigiani at the Prague Conservatory and with Richard Loewy in Vienna...
, she made her debut at the Hamburg Opera in 1910 as a page in Wagner's Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
. In 1914, she sang for the first time at the Vienna State Opera
Vienna State Opera
The Vienna State Opera is an opera house – and opera company – with a history dating back to the mid-19th century. It is located in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was originally called the Vienna Court Opera . In 1920, with the replacement of the Habsburg Monarchy by the First Austrian...
, which she joined in 1916. There she sang the premieres of a number of operas by Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
, including Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
in 1916, Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten
Die Frau ohne Schatten is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss with a libretto by his long-time collaborator, the poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It was written between 1911 and either 1915 or 1917...
in 1919, Intermezzo
Intermezzo
In music, an intermezzo , in the most general sense, is a composition which fits between other musical or dramatic entities, such as acts of a play or movements of a larger musical work...
in 1924, and Arabella
Arabella
Arabella is a lyric comedy or opera in 3 acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. It was first performed on 1 July 1933, at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater....
in 1933, as well as Vienna premieres of several operas by Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...
. She made her debut in London in 1914, and from 1924 to 1935 she performed regularly at the Royal Opera House
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
, Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
. She appeared regularly at the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
from 1926 to 1937, performing with Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini
Arturo Toscanini was an Italian conductor. One of the most acclaimed musicians of the late 19th and 20th century, he was renowned for his intensity, his perfectionism, his ear for orchestral detail and sonority, and his photographic memory...
, among other conductors. She also gave recitals there accompanied at the piano by the conductor Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter was a German-born conductor. He is considered one of the best known conductors of the 20th century. Walter was born in Berlin, but is known to have lived in several countries between 1933 and 1939, before finally settling in the United States in 1939...
. In 1936, while in Salzburg, she discovered the Trapp Family Singers, later made famous in the musical The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music
The Sound of Music is a musical by Richard Rodgers, lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and a book by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse. It is based on the memoir of Maria von Trapp, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers...
, and persuaded them to present their first public performance.
In 1930, Lehmann made her American debut in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
as Sieglinde in Wagner's
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
Die Walküre
Die Walküre
Die Walküre , WWV 86B, is the second of the four operas that form the cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen , by Richard Wagner...
. Lehmann's other Wagnerian roles included Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is an opera in three acts, written and composed by Richard Wagner. It is among the longest operas still commonly performed today, usually taking around four and a half hours. It was first performed at the Königliches Hof- und National-Theater in Munich, on June 21,...
, Elsa in Lohengrin
Lohengrin (opera)
Lohengrin is a romantic opera in three acts composed and written by Richard Wagner, first performed in 1850. The story of the eponymous character is taken from medieval German romance, notably the Parzival of Wolfram von Eschenbach and its sequel, Lohengrin, written by a different author, itself...
, and Elisabeth in Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
. She was also famous for her interpretation of Leonore in Beethoven's
Ludwig van Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
Fidelio
Fidelio
Fidelio is a German opera in two acts by Ludwig van Beethoven. It is Beethoven's only opera. The German libretto is by Joseph Sonnleithner from the French of Jean-Nicolas Bouilly which had been used for the 1798 opera Léonore, ou L’amour conjugal by Pierre Gaveaux, and for the 1804 opera Leonora...
. Just before Germany annexed Austria in 1938, Lehmann fled to the United States, where she continued to sing at the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
and the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
until 1945.
In addition to her operatic work, Lehmann was a renowned singer of lieder, giving frequent recitals throughout her career. Beginning with her first recital tour to Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
in 1937, she worked closely with the accompanist Paul Ulanowsky
Paul Ulanowsky
Paul Alexander Theodore Ulanowsky was an Austrian-American pianist, accompanist, vocal coach, and music educator of Austrian and Ukrainian decent. He began his career as the pianist for the Vienna Philharmonic from 1927-1935...
. He remained her primary accompanist for concerts and master classes until her retirement fourteen years later.
She also made a foray into film acting, playing the mother of a Jewish cantor played by Danny Thomas in Big City
Big City
Big City may refer to:* Big City , a fictional future city in Antarctica*The Big City , directed by Tod Browning*Big City , a 1937 film, directed by Frank Borzage, starring Luise Rainer and Spencer Tracy...
(1948), which also starred Robert Preston, George Murphy, Margaret O'Brien and Betty Garrett.
After her retirement from the recital stage in 1951, Lehmann taught master classes at the Music Academy of the West
Music Academy of the West
The Music Academy of the West is a music conservatory located in Montecito, California near Santa Barbara, California. Every year, it hosts a summer music festival for the community highlighted by concerts and workshops directed by famous composers, conductors, and artists.A yearly maximum of 135...
in Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
, which she helped found in 1947. She also gave master classes in Chicago, London, Vienna, and other cities. For her contribution to the recording industry, Lehmann has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
at 1735 Vine St. However, her first name is misspelled there as "Lottie".
She was a prolific author, publishing a book of poems Verse in Prosa in the early 1920s, a novel, Orplid, mein Land in 1937, which appeared in English as Eternal Flight in 1937, and a book of memoirs, Anfang und Aufstieg (1937), which later appeared as On Wings of Song in the U.K. in 1938 and as Midway in My Song in the U.S. in 1938. She also published volumes on the interpretation of song and the interpretation of opera roles. Later books included Five Operas and Richard Strauss, known as Singing with Richard Strauss in the U.K., a second book of poems in 1969, and Eighteen Song Cycles in 1971, consisting of material drawn largely from earlier works.
Lehmann was an active painter in her retirement. Her painting included a series of twenty-four illustrations in tempera for each song of Schubert's Winterreise
Winterreise
Winterreise is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert , a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin...
.
Death
Santa Barbara, California
Santa Barbara is the county seat of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Situated on an east-west trending section of coastline, the longest such section on the West Coast of the United States, the city lies between the steeply-rising Santa Ynez Mountains and the Pacific Ocean...
. She is interred in the Zentralfriedhof
Zentralfriedhof
The Zentralfriedhof is one of the largest cemeteries in the world, largest by number of interred in Europe and most famous cemetery among Vienna's nearly 50 cemeteries.-Name and location:...
in Vienna, Austria.
Legacy
The Lotte Lehmann Concert Hall on the campus of the University of California, Santa BarbaraUniversity of California, Santa Barbara
The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
was named in her honor.
The Lotte Lehmann Foundation
Lotte Lehmann Foundation
The Lotte Lehmann Foundation, named for the great German soprano active in the first half of the 20th century, serves to preserve and perpetuate her legacy, and to honor her dream of bringing art song into the lives of as many people as possible....
was established in 1995 to preserve and perpetuate Lotte Lehmann's legacy and at the same time to bring art song into the lives of as many people as possible. In 2011 the Lotte Lehmann League developed a new website in her honor: www.lottelehmannleague.org
Works
- Eighteen song cycles: studies in their interpretation (London: Cassell, 1971)
- Eternal Flight, translated by Elsa Krauch (NY: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1937)
- Five operas and Richard Strauss. (New York, Macmillan Co. [1964]
- Midway in my Song: The Autobiography of Lotte Lehmann (NY: Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1938)
- More Than Singing: The Interpretation of Songs (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1945)
- My Many Lives (NY: Boosey & Hawkes, 1948)
Sources
- Nigel Douglas, Legendary Voices (London: Deutsch, 1992)
- Beaumont Glass, Lotte Lehmann: A Life in Opera and Song (Santa Barbara, CA: Capra Press, 1988)
- Alan Jefferson, Lotte Lehmann, 1888-1976: A Centenary Biography (London : J. MacRae Books, 1988); German version: Lotte Lehmann: Eine Biographie (1991)
- Michael H. Kater, Never Sang for Hitler: The Life and Times of Lotte Lehmann (NY: Cambridge University Press, 2008)
- Berndt Wilhelm Wessling, Lotte Lehmann: "Sie sang, dass es Sterne rührte": eine Biographie (Köln-Rodenkirchen: P.J. Tonger, 1995)
External links
- lottelehmannleague.org
- Lotte Lehmann papers at the University of California, Santa BarbaraUniversity of California, Santa BarbaraThe University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
Library. - Lotte Lehmann sings Schubert's "An die Musik" (Shockwave required) in hypermedia presentation at the BinAural Collaborative Hypertext (BACH)
- Lotte Lehmann master class (1961)
- l Recording of "Klänge der Heimat: Csàrdàs" by Lotte Lehmann