Pavel Ludikar
Encyclopedia
Pavel Ludikar was a Czech
opera
tic bass
who had a highly successful international singing career from 1904 through 1944. He began his career in his native country and by 1911 had arisen at many of the major opera house
s in Europe. From 1913 to 1935 his career was mainly centered in North and South America. The peak of his opera career was reached at the Metropolitan Opera
in New York City where he was committed from 1926-1932. He returned to Europe in 1935 to assume directorship of the Neues deutsches Theatre
in Prague, remaining there until the theatre was closed in September 1938 due to Nazi occupation, effectively ending his stage career. The height of his later years in Prague was his portrayal of the title hero in the world premiere of Ernst Krenek
's Karl V
in June 1938.
One of the great singer-actors of his generation, Ludikar sang a broad repertoire of music which encompassed a total of twelve languages. He was particularly loved for his portrayals of roles in operas by Richard Wagner
, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
, and Giacomo Puccini
. Ludikar began teaching singing in Prague in 1941. In 1947 he joined the faculty at the Vienna Music Academy where he taught until his death almost three decades later. He also gave annual master classes at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg for many years. His voice is preserved on a number of recordings from the Supraphon
label.
. He first studied law and philosophy at the University of Prague
and then trained as a concert pianist. In 1901, at the age of 19, he traveled throughout North America giving piano concerts. Upon his return home he decided he wanted to pursue a singing career and began opera studies with first his mother and then Jean Lassalle in Paris
. He made his professional opera debut at the National Theatre
in his native city in 1904 as Sarastro in The Magic Flute
.
and the Semperoper
in Dresden
. He reached La Scala
in Milan
in 1911 where he sang in the Italian premières of Richard Strauss
's Der Rosenkavalier
(as Ochs) and Engelbert Humperdinck
's Königskinder
(as the Fiddler). Other roles he appeared in at La Scala included Bluebeard in Ariane et Barbe-bleue
, Falstaff in Otto Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor
, Geronimo in Domenico Cimarosa
's Il matrimonio segreto
, and both Pagner and Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
.
In the years before World War II, Ludikar performed at the opera houses in Rome, Trieste, Turin, Paris, Budapest and Havana. In 1911, 1913, and 1920 he was committed to the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires where he was an admired Wotan in The Ring Cycle and King Marke in Tristan und Isolde
. In 1913-1914 he worked with the Boston Opera Company
, having a great success there as Archibaldo in Italo Montemezzi
's L'amore dei tre re
and in the role of Hans Sachs. In 1917 he was committed to the Zurich Opera
where he portrayed such roles as Leporello in Don Giovanni
, the Speaker in the The Magic Flute, and Oreste in Strauss's Elektra
.
From 1926-1932 Ludikar was a member of the Metropolitan Opera
in New York City. He made his debut at the house on November 16, 1926 as Timur in the United States premiere of Giacomo Puccini
's Turandot
with Maria Jeritza
in the title role, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi
as Calàf, Martha Attwood as Liù, and Tullio Serafin
conducting. He sang in several more United States premieres with the company including Puccini's La Rondine
(March 10, 1928, Rambaldo), Ildebrando Pizzetti
's Fra Gherardo (March 21, 1929, Guido), Giuseppe Verdi
's Luisa Miller
(December 21, 1929, Wurm), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
's Sadko
(January 25, 1930, the Sea King), and Felice Lattuada
's Le Preziose Ridicole (December 10, 1930, Gorgibus).
Although he was most often seen in operas by Puccini, Mozart, and Wagner, Ludikar sang an incredibly diverse repertoire at the Met; pulling from the leading bass, basso buffo, and comprimario
repertoires. His repertoire there included Alvise in La Gioconda
, Archibaldo, Capulet in Roméo et Juliette
, Ashby in La Fanciulla del West
, Colline in La Bohème
, Daland in The Flying Dutchman
, Don Alfonso in Così Fan Tutte
, Ferrando in Il trovatore
, Geronte in Manon Lescaut
, Gesler in William Tell
, Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande
, Hermann in Tannhäuser
, Hunding in Die Walküre
, Leporello, Kecal in The Bartered Bride
, King Heinrich in Lohengrin
, King Marke, Mathieu in Andrea Chénier
, Pedro in L'Africaine
, Peter in Hänsel und Gretel, Pogner, Ramfis in Aida
, Rocco in Fidelio
, Sarastro, Simone in Gianni Schicchi
, and Sparafucile in Rigoletto
. His final and 220th performance with the Met was as Coppélius in Les Contes d'Hoffmann
for an out of town engagement in Cleveland, Ohio on April 23, 1932.
After leaving the Met, Ludikar toured the United States for a few years with the Hinshaw Grand Opera Company. He returned to Europe in 1935 when he became director of the Neues deutsches Theatre
in Prague. In the 1930s, with the growing Nazi threat, the Neues deutsches Theatre was among the bastions of democracy, serving as a refuge for artists from Germany. Political developments shortly before signature of the Munich Agreement
coupled with financial problems led to the theatre's closing in September 1938, effectively ending Ludikar's opera career. The great achievement of his later years in Prague was his portrayal of the title role in the world premiere of Ernst Krenek
's Karl V
on 22 June 1938.
, Ludikar continued to perform in concerts in Germany and Austria. He taught singing in Prague from 1941-1943. In 1944 he taught master classes at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg and gave his final public concerts in that city in that year. He then returned to Prague.
After the end of World War II, Ludikar wanted to move to Austria but was forbidden to leave by the now Soviet
controlled government in his country. He spent the next couple years living in seclusion in the vicinity of Prague. He managed to leave the country in late 1947 upon which time he joined the faculty of the Vienna Music Academy. He taught there and gave annual masterclasses at the Salzburg Mozarteum up until his death in Vienna in 1970. He also served for a few years as the director of the opera house in Graz.
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
tic bass
Bass (voice type)
A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...
who had a highly successful international singing career from 1904 through 1944. He began his career in his native country and by 1911 had arisen at many of the major opera house
Opera house
An opera house is a theatre building used for opera performances that consists of a stage, an orchestra pit, audience seating, and backstage facilities for costumes and set building...
s in Europe. From 1913 to 1935 his career was mainly centered in North and South America. The peak of his opera career was reached at 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...
in New York City where he was committed from 1926-1932. He returned to Europe in 1935 to assume directorship of the Neues deutsches Theatre
Prague State Opera
The Prague State Opera , is an opera and ballet company in Prague, Czech Republic. The theatre was originally founded in 1888 as the New German Theatre and from 1949 to 1989 it was known as the Smetana Theatre....
in Prague, remaining there until the theatre was closed in September 1938 due to Nazi occupation, effectively ending his stage career. The height of his later years in Prague was his portrayal of the title hero in the world premiere of Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek was an Austrian of Czech origin and, from 1945, American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music...
's Karl V
Karl V
Karl V is an opera, described as a Bühnenwerk mit Musik by Ernst Krenek, his opus 73. The German libretto is by the composer....
in June 1938.
One of the great singer-actors of his generation, Ludikar sang a broad repertoire of music which encompassed a total of twelve languages. He was particularly loved for his portrayals of roles in operas by Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
, and Giacomo 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...
. Ludikar began teaching singing in Prague in 1941. In 1947 he joined the faculty at the Vienna Music Academy where he taught until his death almost three decades later. He also gave annual master classes at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg for many years. His voice is preserved on a number of recordings from the Supraphon
Supraphon
Supraphon Music Publishing is a Czech record label, it is oriented mainly towards publishing classical music, with an emphasis on Czech and Slovak composers.- History :...
label.
Early life and education: 1882-1904
Born Pavel Vyskočil in Prague, his father was a conductor at the Prague Opera and his mother, Františky Ludikarové-Vyskočilové, was an operatic contraltoContralto
Contralto is the deepest female classical singing voice, with the lowest tessitura, falling between tenor and mezzo-soprano. It typically ranges between the F below middle C to the second G above middle C , although at the extremes some voices can reach the E below middle C or the second B above...
. He first studied law and philosophy at the University of Prague
Charles University in Prague
Charles University in Prague is the oldest and largest university in the Czech Republic. Founded in 1348, it was the first university in Central Europe and is also considered the earliest German university...
and then trained as a concert pianist. In 1901, at the age of 19, he traveled throughout North America giving piano concerts. Upon his return home he decided he wanted to pursue a singing career and began opera studies with first his mother and then Jean Lassalle in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
. He made his professional opera debut at the National Theatre
National Theatre (Prague)
The National Theatre in Prague is known as the Alma Mater of Czech opera, and as the national monument of Czech history and art.The National Theatre belongs to the most important Czech cultural institutions, with a rich artistic tradition which was created and maintained by the most distinguished...
in his native city in 1904 as Sarastro in The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
.
International success: 1905-1938
After several more initial successes in Prague, he made a number of highly lauded guest appearances at the Vienna VolksoperVienna Volksoper
The Vienna Volksoper is a major opera house in Vienna, Austria. It gives about three hundred performances of twenty-five productions during an annual season running from September through June....
and the Semperoper
Semperoper
The Semperoper is the opera house of the Sächsische Staatsoper Dresden and the concert hall of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden . It is located near the Elbe River in the historic center of Dresden, Germany.The opera house was originally built by the architect Gottfried Semper in 1841...
in Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
. He reached La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
in 1911 where he sang in the Italian premières 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...
's 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...
(as Ochs) and Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck
Engelbert Humperdinck was a German composer, best known for his opera, Hänsel und Gretel. Humperdinck was born at Siegburg in the Rhine Province; at the age of 67 he died in Neustrelitz, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.-Life:After receiving piano lessons, Humperdinck produced his first composition...
's Königskinder
Königskinder
Königskinder is a stage work by Engelbert Humperdinck that exists in two versions: as a melodrama and as an opera or more precisely a Märchenoper...
(as the Fiddler). Other roles he appeared in at La Scala included Bluebeard in Ariane et Barbe-bleue
Ariane et Barbe-bleue
Ariane et Barbe-bleue is an opera in three acts by Paul Dukas. The French libretto is adapted from the symbolist play by Maurice Maeterlinck....
, Falstaff in Otto Nicolai's The Merry Wives of Windsor
The Merry Wives of Windsor (opera)
The Merry Wives of Windsor is an opera in three acts by Otto Nicolai to a German libretto by Hermann Salomon Mosenthal, based on the play The Merry Wives of Windsor by William Shakespeare....
, Geronimo in Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa
Domenico Cimarosa was an Italian opera composer of the Neapolitan school...
's Il matrimonio segreto
Il matrimonio segreto
Il matrimonio segreto is an opera in two acts, music by Domenico Cimarosa, on a libretto by Giovanni Bertati, based on the play The Clandestine Marriage by George Colman the Elder and David Garrick...
, and both Pagner and Hans Sachs 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,...
.
In the years before World War II, Ludikar performed at the opera houses in Rome, Trieste, Turin, Paris, Budapest and Havana. In 1911, 1913, and 1920 he was committed to the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires where he was an admired Wotan in The Ring Cycle and King Marke in Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde
Tristan und Isolde is an opera, or music drama, in three acts by Richard Wagner to a German libretto by the composer, based largely on the romance by Gottfried von Straßburg. It was composed between 1857 and 1859 and premiered in Munich on 10 June 1865 with Hans von Bülow conducting...
. In 1913-1914 he worked with the Boston Opera Company
Boston Opera Company
The Boston Opera Company was an American opera company located in Boston, Massachusetts that was active from 1909 to 1915.-History:The company was founded in 1908 by Bostonian millionaire Eben Dyer Jordan, Jr. and impresario Henry Russell...
, having a great success there as Archibaldo in Italo Montemezzi
Italo Montemezzi
Italo Montemezzi was an Italian composer. He is best known for his opera L'amore dei tre re , once part of the standard repertoire....
's L'amore dei tre re
L'amore dei tre re
L'amore dei tre re is an opera in three acts by Italo Montemezzi. Its Italian-language libretto was written by playwright Sem Benelli who based it on his own play of the same title.-Performance history:...
and in the role of Hans Sachs. In 1917 he was committed to the Zurich Opera
Zurich Opera
Oper Zürich is an opera company based in Zurich, Switzerland. The company gives performances in the Opernhaus Zürich which has been the company’s home for fifty years.-History:...
where he portrayed such roles as Leporello in Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, the Speaker in the The Magic Flute, and Oreste in Strauss's Elektra
Elektra (opera)
Elektra is a one-act opera by Richard Strauss, to a German-language libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, which he adapted from his 1903 drama Elektra. The opera was the first of many collaborations between Strauss and Hofmannsthal...
.
From 1926-1932 Ludikar was a member of 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...
in New York City. He made his debut at the house on November 16, 1926 as Timur in the United States premiere of Giacomo 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...
's Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
with Maria Jeritza
Maria Jeritza
Maria Jeritza , born Marie Jedličková, was a celebrated Moravian soprano singer, long associated with the Vienna State Opera and the Metropolitan Opera...
in the title role, Giacomo Lauri-Volpi
Giacomo Lauri-Volpi
Giacomo Lauri-Volpi was an Italian tenor with a lyric-dramatic voice of exceptional range and technical facility. He performed throughout Europe and the Americas in a top-class career that spanned 40 years....
as Calàf, Martha Attwood as Liù, and Tullio Serafin
Tullio Serafin
-Biography:Tullio Serafin was a leading Italian opera conductor with a long career and a very broad repertoire who revived many 19th century bel canto operas by Bellini, Rossini and Donizetti to become staples of 20th century repertoire...
conducting. He sang in several more United States premieres with the company including Puccini's La Rondine
La rondine
La rondine is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giuseppe Adami, based on a libretto by Alfred Maria Willner and Heinz Reichert...
(March 10, 1928, Rambaldo), Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti
Ildebrando Pizzetti was an Italian composer of classical music.- Biography :Pizzetti was born in Parma in 1880. He was part of the "Generation of 1880" along with Ottorino Respighi and Gian Francesco Malipiero. They were among the first Italian composers in some time whose primary contributions...
's Fra Gherardo (March 21, 1929, Guido), Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
's Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller
Luisa Miller is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play Kabale und Liebe by Friedrich von Schiller. The first performance was given at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples on December 8, 1849...
(December 21, 1929, Wurm), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...
's Sadko
Sadko (opera)
Sadko is an opera in seven scenes by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The libretto was written by the composer, with assistance from Vladimir Belsky, Vladimir Stasov, and others. Rimsky-Korsakov was first inspired by the bylina of Sadko in 1867, when he completed a tone poem on the subject, his Op. 5...
(January 25, 1930, the Sea King), and Felice Lattuada
Felice Lattuada
Felice Lattuada was an Italian composer.Lattuada was born at Caselle di Morimondo, near Milan. In his early adulthood he worked as a school teacher and was a self-taught amateur composer. That changed when he entered the Milan Conservatory in 1907. He studied composition there under V. Ferroni for...
's Le Preziose Ridicole (December 10, 1930, Gorgibus).
Although he was most often seen in operas by Puccini, Mozart, and Wagner, Ludikar sang an incredibly diverse repertoire at the Met; pulling from the leading bass, basso buffo, and comprimario
Comprimario
A Comprimario is a supporting role in an opera. Derived from the Italian "con primario", or "with the primary", the term refers to a performer who sings small role pieces....
repertoires. His repertoire there included Alvise in La Gioconda
La Gioconda (opera)
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...
, Archibaldo, Capulet in Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette
Roméo et Juliette is an opéra in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré, based on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare. It was first performed at the Théâtre Lyrique , Paris on 27 April 1867...
, Ashby in La Fanciulla del West
La fanciulla del West
La fanciulla del West is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Guelfo Civinini and Carlo Zangarini, based on the play The Girl of the Golden West by the American author David Belasco. Its highly-publicised premiere occurred in New York City in 1910...
, Colline in La Bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
, Daland in The Flying Dutchman
The Flying Dutchman (opera)
Der fliegende Holländer is an opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner.Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write "The Flying Dutchman" following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839, but in his 1843...
, Don Alfonso in Così Fan Tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
, Ferrando in Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
, Geronte in Manon Lescaut
Manon Lescaut
Manon Lescaut is a short novel by French author Abbé Prévost. Published in 1731, it is the seventh and final volume of Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité . It was controversial in its time and was banned in France upon publication...
, Gesler in William Tell
William Tell (opera)
Guillaume Tell is an opera in four acts by Gioachino Rossini to a French libretto by Etienne de Jouy and Hippolyte Bis, based on Friedrich Schiller's play Wilhelm Tell. Based on the legend of William Tell, this opera was Rossini's last, even though the composer lived for nearly forty more years...
, Golaud in Pelléas et Mélisande
Pelléas et Mélisande (opera)
Pelléas et Mélisande is an opera in five acts with music by Claude Debussy. The French libretto was adapted from Maurice Maeterlinck's Symbolist play Pelléas et Mélisande...
, Hermann 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...
, Hunding in 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...
, Leporello, Kecal in The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride
The Bartered Bride is a comic opera in three acts by the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana, to a libretto by Karel Sabina. The opera is considered to have made a major contribution towards the development of Czech music. It was composed during the period 1863–66, and first performed at the...
, King Heinrich 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...
, King Marke, Mathieu in Andrea Chénier
Andrea Chénier
Andrea Chénier is a verismo opera in four acts by the composer Umberto Giordano, set to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica. It is based loosely on the life of the French poet, André Chénier , who was executed during the French Revolution....
, Pedro in L'Africaine
L'Africaine
L'africaine is a grand opera, the last work of the composer Giacomo Meyerbeer. The French libretto was written by Eugène Scribe. The opera is about fictitious events in the life of the real historical person Vasco da Gama...
, Peter in Hänsel und Gretel, Pogner, Ramfis in Aida
Aida
Aida sometimes spelled Aïda, is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on a scenario written by French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette...
, Rocco in 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...
, Sarastro, Simone in Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. The work is the third and final part of Puccini's Il trittico —three one-act operas with...
, and Sparafucile in Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
. His final and 220th performance with the Met was as Coppélius in Les Contes d'Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann
Les contes d'Hoffmann is an opéra by Jacques Offenbach. The French libretto was written by Jules Barbier, based on short stories by E. T. A...
for an out of town engagement in Cleveland, Ohio on April 23, 1932.
After leaving the Met, Ludikar toured the United States for a few years with the Hinshaw Grand Opera Company. He returned to Europe in 1935 when he became director of the Neues deutsches Theatre
Prague State Opera
The Prague State Opera , is an opera and ballet company in Prague, Czech Republic. The theatre was originally founded in 1888 as the New German Theatre and from 1949 to 1989 it was known as the Smetana Theatre....
in Prague. In the 1930s, with the growing Nazi threat, the Neues deutsches Theatre was among the bastions of democracy, serving as a refuge for artists from Germany. Political developments shortly before signature of the Munich Agreement
Munich Agreement
The Munich Pact was an agreement permitting the Nazi German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland. The Sudetenland were areas along Czech borders, mainly inhabited by ethnic Germans. The agreement was negotiated at a conference held in Munich, Germany, among the major powers of Europe without...
coupled with financial problems led to the theatre's closing in September 1938, effectively ending Ludikar's opera career. The great achievement of his later years in Prague was his portrayal of the title role in the world premiere of Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek
Ernst Krenek was an Austrian of Czech origin and, from 1945, American composer. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including Music Here and Now , a study of Johannes Ockeghem , and Horizons Circled: Reflections on my Music...
's Karl V
Karl V
Karl V is an opera, described as a Bühnenwerk mit Musik by Ernst Krenek, his opus 73. The German libretto is by the composer....
on 22 June 1938.
Career as teacher: 1939-1970
During the years of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Ludikar continued to perform in concerts in Germany and Austria. He taught singing in Prague from 1941-1943. In 1944 he taught master classes at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg and gave his final public concerts in that city in that year. He then returned to Prague.
After the end of World War II, Ludikar wanted to move to Austria but was forbidden to leave by the now Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
controlled government in his country. He spent the next couple years living in seclusion in the vicinity of Prague. He managed to leave the country in late 1947 upon which time he joined the faculty of the Vienna Music Academy. He taught there and gave annual masterclasses at the Salzburg Mozarteum up until his death in Vienna in 1970. He also served for a few years as the director of the opera house in Graz.