Munich's Residenz

Munich's Residenz, former home to the Wittelsbach dynasty, which ruled Bavaria for over 700 years, is the subject of this photograph. Munich's National Theater, now home of The Bavarian State Opera, is barely visible on the right.


The Residenz as it appeared in 1875 may be seen in this photograph. Once again, The National Theater, then home of The Munich Court Opera, may be seen on the right.

Gueden, Jurinac And Della Casa

There are singers of the past I regret I missed.

Three of them—sopranos Hilde Gueden, Sena Jurinac and Lisa Della Casa—appear in the photograph above. The photograph was taken at the Salzburg Festival in 1960.

That year, Salzburg’s new state-of-the-art Festpielhaus was inaugurated with great fanfare amid worldwide interest. Opening night saw a new and elaborate production of Richard Strauss’s “Der Rosencavalier” with Gueden singing Sophie, Jurinac singing Octavian and Della Casa singing the Marschallin. The conductor was Herbert Von Karajan.

In the last century, more soprano reputations have been made in “Der Rosencavalier” than any other opera. Such was certainly the case with Gueden, Jurinac and Della Casa, all three of whom found their earliest acclaim in roles from Strauss’s 1911 evocation of The Age Of Maria Theresia.

Gueden (1917-1988), a native of Vienna, sang only one “Rosencavalier” role her entire career, contenting herself with Sophie. Gueden’s first Sophie was sung in Italy during the war, under the baton of Tullio Serafin. The role made her famous. Gueden was to return to Germany after the war carrying the status of a certified international star (Gueden, half-Jewish, had been forced to leave Hitler’s Germany). Gueden retained Sophie in her repertory until late in her career, never “moving up” to the Marschallin, unlike so many other sopranos.

Jurinac (born 1920), of Croatian/Viennese descent, became a member of the Wiener Staatsoper ensemble in 1944. Her debut was to be delayed, considerably, because the Staatsoper was destroyed by Allied bombs on Jurinac’s third day in Vienna. Staatsoper performances were not to resume until the war had concluded.

Jurinac’s first performance in “Rosencavalier” came in 1946, and it came in Vienna. She sang her first Octavian, to unprecedented acclaim, with the Staatsoper while it occupied Theater An Der Wien.

Jurinac kept Octavian in her repertory for almost twenty years. During this period, she also sang a handful of performances of Sophie. Late in her career, Jurinac became a celebrated Marschallin. Jurinac gave her farewell performance in 1982 in Vienna, singing the Marschallin one last time at the Staatsoper.

Della Casa (born 1919), from Switzerland, sang Sophie early in her career. She was soon to add Octavian to her repertory, and later she added the Marschallin, the “Rosencavalier” role for which Della Casa was most celebrated.

A famous film was made of the 1960 Salzburg “Rosencavalier” production, but the filmed performance involved only one of the three sopranos in the photograph: Jurinac. Della Casa was replaced by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf for the filmed performance, and Gueden was replaced by Anneliese Rothenberger.

Della Casa was livid when she learned that Schwarzkopf would replace her for the filmed performance. Della Casa, believing she had been wronged, permanently thereafter struck Salzburg from the list of venues at which she would appear.

Ironically, when Schwarzkopf made a belated Metropolitan Opera debut in 1964 as the Marschallin, Della Casa appeared as Schwarzkopf’s Octavian. Relations between the two artists during rehearsals and performances in New York, it was reported, were amicable.

Gueden and Della Casa were not known as amicable persons during their performing careers.

Gueden, especially, was widely disliked by those with whom she worked. There was a mettlesome quality in Gueden’s personality that made her one part charming and gemutlich, and one part obstreperous and unyielding. Gueden’s odd combination of soft tissue and hard steel apparently worked to her advantage onstage—the two dissimilar qualities lent her performances tension, and helped to make her performances interesting—but such qualities did not make Gueden many friends in private life.

On a personal level, Gueden and Della Casa intensely disliked each other.

During Georg Solti’s first studio recording of a complete opera for Decca, a recording of Strauss’s “Arabella” made in Vienna in May and June 1957, Gueden’s and Della Casa’s childish antics drove Solti to despair. He almost abandoned the project (and was to hate his “Arabella” recording for the rest of his life).

The producer of the recording, John Culshaw, has written how Gueden and Della Casa carried on like third graders during the lengthy recording sessions, bickering with each other over the most trivial matters—the two women actually resorted to shoving each other during the sessions—and relentlessly complaining about the other to anyone who might listen.

Gueden and Della Casa were almost fired from the project on account of their behavior. Neither Solti nor Culshaw worked with either singer ever again—and both singers were soon to find that their services as recording artists were no longer much in demand once the “Arabella” sessions concluded. (According to Culshaw, practically everyone involved in the recording sessions resolved never again to work with Gueden and Della Casa; George London, who sang Mandryka for the recording, was thereafter to refer to Gueden and Della Casa as “a couple of ball-busting bitches”.)

Jurinac, in contrast, was loved on a personal level by almost everyone who worked with her. It is hard to find anyone who offers anything but praise for Jurinac as a person.

Gueden, Jurinac and Della Casa all possessed one common trait: envy over the fact that Schwarzkopf enjoyed a much higher career profile than they (as well as the higher fees that came with that higher profile).

It was quite natural that all three singers regarded Schwarzkopf with suspicion. For them, Schwarzkopf was the elephant in the room—Schwarzkopf's career was of such overwhelming brilliance that it eclipsed the careers of her Central European contemporaries. It was then and it is now hard to assess the careers of any of the three sopranos without bringing Schwarzkopf into the equation.

All three, at one time or another, were to criticize Schwarzkopf publicly, and sometimes brutally—and the criticisms were often directed both at Schwarzkopf as an artist and Schwarzkopf as a person.

Of the three, the most direct rival of Schwarzkopf was Della Casa, whose repertory was most similar to the repertory of Schwarzkopf.

Della Casa’s and Schwarzkopf’s repertories overlapped significantly. Both singers recorded many of the same roles at much the same time, a circumstance made possible because Della Casa recorded for Decca while Schwarzkopf recorded for EMI. A natural rivalry of sorts emerged.

Invariably, Schwarzkopf came out on top.

I cannot think of a single instance in which, in the same role, Della Casa’s recorded version trumps Schwarzkopf’s recorded version. Schwarzkopf always operated on multiple levels, an inherent part of Schwarzkopf’s incomparable genius, while Della Casa was very much a “surface” artist.

Jurinac and Schwarzkopf, on the other hand, were to share a common misfortune that was to trouble both singers for decades: in the very early 1960s, Karajan, without notice and without explanation, coldly and abruptly dropped both singers from the list of artists with whom he would work.

Neither singer ever forgave the slight.

Richard Tucker Costumed For "La Gioconda"

There are singers of the past I am pleased I missed.

Plans

On Sunday, Joshua and I plan to hear in concert the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic under Yuri Temirkanov. The program: music of Rimsky-Korsakov, Shostakovich and Brahms (Temirkanov is a wonderful Brahms conductor, one of the finest Brahms conductors alive).

So far as we know, Temirkanov has not cancelled. The last two times Josh and I planned to hear Temirkanov, he cancelled, leaving us disappointed (and a little bit miffed). Needless to say, we hope he does not cancel on Sunday afternoon.

When I was in law school, I would often drive up to Baltimore to hear Temirkanov lead the Baltimore Symphony. Temirkanov’s Baltimore concerts invariably were excellent. It was during this period that I found out that Temirkanov was much more than a specialist in Russian repertory. I learned firsthand that Temirkanov was especially fine with Brahms and Mahler—as well as Elgar and Britten, something I found surprising at the time.

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The following weekend, Josh and I may attend a performance of George Balanchine’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, to be presented by Boston Ballet. The run of performances begins tonight.

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Otherwise, we are hunkered down, wrapping things up (and dealing with taxes).

We are still in the midst of making graduation arrangements with everyone from out of town. It has taken us longer than we expected, primarily because everyone is having trouble making final decisions. We hope to have everything completed within another ten days.

Because everyone is coming for Josh’s graduation, we will not attempt to go home for Easter this year.

A Seventh Grader With A Thesaurus

Three weeks ago tomorrow night, Joshua and I went to Jordan Hall to hear the Akademie Fur Alte Musik Berlin play music of Bach, Handel and Telemann.

The concert was not good.

Intonation was poor. The Akademie Fur Alte Musik Berlin has been performing for thirty years; there is no excuse for such a long-established original-instrument ensemble to offer impure intonation.

Balance was an issue all evening. Balances were generally odd if not outright peculiar. Both wind instruments and string instruments would often overwhelm the entire instrumental ensemble, then virtually disappear from the orchestral fabric.

Voicing of instrumental lines was absent. Musical phrases would start and stop, without clear notion of how phrases might be tailored to the requirements of instrumentation and maintenance of musical line.

The Akademie Fur Alte Musik Berlin has always played without a conductor (except for a handful of special performances tied to recording projects). The engagement of a conductor would immediately address the group’s intonation, balance and voicing deficiencies. Remaining conductorless has hampered the group’s level of ensemble—which in turn hampers the level of music-making.

Playing was not neat and sparkling, as we have come to expect from British original-instrument ensembles. The quality of sound was not sweet and beguiling, as we have come to expect from Italian original-instrument ensembles.

Indeed, much of the evening was simply a mess. The group left the impression of a devoted but hapless college faculty ensemble, composed of eager but not-quite-first-class musicians at a small college in Kentucky.

The concert began and ended with Telemann. The Overture (Suite) In F Major got things underway; the Concerto In E Minor For Recorder And Flute concluded the proceedings.

In between were Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 5, Bach’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Handel’s Concerto Grosso, Opus 6, Number 2.

To my taste, the group’s music-making was unduly physical—the musicians “acted out” the music as they played, telegraphing the emotions of the music with their bodies and faces.

I do not embrace “dumb show” music-making, but on the evening of March 12 I was in the minority: the Boston audience ate up such antics. The more the musicians mugged, the more the Boston audience responded.

Myself, I wished the quality of music-making had matched the intensity of the elaborate mime show enacted onstage.

An excerpt from Rameau’s “Dardanus” was performed at the conclusion of the scheduled program.

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The Boston Globe has become a laughingstock—assuming the newspaper has not always been a laughingstock, which very well may be the case. Globe music coverage grows worse by the day.

The Globe review of the Akademie Fur Alte Musik Berlin concert had to be seen to be believed. It was the work of a stringer, Matthew Guerrieri, who clearly is the world’s biggest fan of romance novels written for the trailer-park set.

The breathless yet meaningless hokum offered by Guerrieri was incessant, coming in wave after wave of hoary cliche: “the multifariousness of the past”, “historical vectors coalesced”, “Bach in a cutting-edge mood”, “the cutting-edge Handel in an old-fashioned mood”, “the performance stylishly plundered elements from across history”, “an artful imagining of the era’s foreshadowings”, “a cornucopia of approaches”, “a Renaissance-bucolic Passepied”, “an ambient-frozen Plainte”, “populist splendor”, “posited as a plausible forerunner of Romantic virtuosity”, “dexterously mediated between the ensemble’s comping and [the] harpsichordist’s flamboyance”, “furiously buzzing, harpsichord-hero shredding”, “historically informed astringency conjuring modernist bleakness”, “a tight session of traded motives”, “a work that builds entire edifices out of busy, form-following-function passagework”, “limpid, percolating proficiency”, “moved blocks of sound around with frictionless ease”, etc.

One feels the need to vomit after wallowing in such hog-slop.

Does not Guerrieri know the difference between the word “mood” and the word “mode”? And what, precisely, does “an artful imagining of the era’s foreshadowings” signify? And what is the meaning of “harpsichord-hero shredding”?

It is easy to understand why Guerrieri is unemployed (Guerrieri is supported by his wife): anyone who writes so atrociously is bound to have difficulty landing a job.

Guerrieri’s writing is the work of a seventh grader with a Thesaurus.

No Weekend Plans

There being no Hansi Knoteck film festival in Boston this weekend (at least insofar as we know), Joshua and I shall be staying in . . .

Lamenting . . .


Hansi Knoteck, popular German cinema star of the 1930s and 1940s.

A Formulaic Commercial Vehicle

Last weekend, Joshua and I attended a performance of Willy Russell’s “Educating Rita” at Huntington Theatre Company.

“Educating Rita” is a formulaic commercial vehicle—and not a particularly strong one—but the play undoubtedly “works”. I suspect the play “works” because its two characters make evolutions of sorts during the course of the play—and, further, I suspect the play “works” because good actors can make something of its two roles.

I had seen two previous stage productions of “Educating Rita”, and both Josh and I had seen the movie, so there was no uncharted territory for us to explore. We nonetheless enjoyed seeing the actors go through their paces. It was a worthwhile afternoon.

The actor portraying Frank was excellent. He was much better than the actress portraying Rita, who tried a little too hard all afternoon to show Rita’s Pygmalion-like development from hairdresser to woman with intellectual pretensions and middle-class aspirations.

“Educating Rita”, premiered in 1980, resembles nothing so much as a 1970s British television comedy. It is one part earnest, one part pretentious, one part canned laugh lines, one part situation comedy—and one part examination of Britain’s class system, more entrenched in the 1970s than it was to become after the Thatcher reforms.

I am surprised the play has endured—and I am equally surprised that I have bothered to attend a performance three times. The New York Times described “Educating Rita” as “the perfect play about literature for anyone who wouldn’t dream of actually reading books”, and that assessment was spot-on.

“Educating Rita” has never enjoyed a Broadway production, although it has been presented Off-Broadway. Austin Pendleton performed the role of Frank in the original Off-Broadway production, which had a very short run.

The actress who portrayed Rita in the movie, Julie Walters, was the first stage Rita (in London). In fact, the role of Rita was largely responsible for jumpstarting Walters’s career, limited as it has been.

Rue De Rivoli, Paris, 1942

The famous arcaded facades of Rue De Rivoli in 1942.

The edge of Jardin Des Tuileries may be seen on the right side of the photograph. The north wing of Musee Louvre is visible in the distance.

The Paris Opera, March 1941

The Palais Garnier, nine months into the German Occupation.

Hans Hotter

Of the great singers of the past, the one I most wish I had seen and heard was Hans Hotter (1909-2003).

The legendary German baritone certainly was not blessed with the greatest voice of his time, but he may have displayed the endowment he was given to greater effect than any singer before or since.

On disc, no other singer—in any voice category—displays Hotter’s level of probing intelligence and deep insight. He was a magical artist and a profound interpreter, in a class by himself.

If firsthand accounts from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s may be considered accurate, Hotter was an imposing if not riveting stage figure. What was described as an overwhelming stage presence helps to account for the fact that he was in constant demand by the finest theaters in Central Europe for almost three decades.

Hotter never achieved the acclaim in America to which he was naturally entitled, in large part because Rudolf Bing, General Manager of The Metropolitan Opera, seriously undervalued Hotter as an artist. Hotter only appeared at the Met for four seasons, and most often in roles unworthy of his great gifts.

In the 1950-1951 season, Hotter sang thirteen performances at the Met: five performances of Vanderdecken in Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman”; five performances of the Grand Inquisitor in Verdi’s “Don Carlo”; two performances of Wotan in Wagner’s “Das Rheingold”; and one performance of Kurwenal in Wagner’s “Tristan Und Isolde”.

Hotter’s “Dutchman” debut performances, conducted by Fritz Reiner, were a sensation, but Bing chose not to make Hotter a mainstay of the theater—and, of greater significance, Bing chose to offer Hotter only subsidiary roles once Hotter’s first Metropolitan Opera season concluded.

Hotter’s five “Dutchman” performances at The Metropolitan Opera—sung in English—resulted, at the very least, in one of the most iconic opera photographs of the 1950s, and probably the most famous photograph of Hotter in stage costume.


In the 1951-1952 season, Hotter sang another thirteen performances at the Met: five performances of Jochanaan in Strauss’s “Salome”; another three performances of the Grand Inquisitor in “Don Carlo”; two performances of Amfortas in Wagner’s “Parsifal”; two performances of Orest in Strauss’s “Elektra”; and a single performance of Gunther in Wagner’s “Gotterdammerung”.

The 1952-1953 season saw Hotter appear seven times at the Met—and in increasingly insignificant roles: four performances of Marke in “Tristan”; two performances of Pogner in Wagner’s “Die Meistersinger”; and another performance of Amfortas in “Parsifal”.

The 1953-1954 season, Hotter’s last at the Met, saw Hotter in five performances, all in more-or-less insulting roles for a singer of Hotter’s gifts: four performances of Hunding in Wagner’s “Die Walkure”; and a single performance of Gurnemanz in “Parsifal”.

After his Metropolitan Opera career ended, Hotter appeared for two seasons at San Francisco Opera.

In 1954, Hotter sang in six San Francisco performances: two performances of Vanderdecken in “Dutchman”; two performances of Pizarro in Beethoven’s “Fidelio”; and two performances of Almaviva in Mozart’s “The Marriage Of Figaro”.

In 1956, Hotter sang another six performances in San Francisco: another two performances of Vanderdecken in “Dutchman”; two performances of Rangoni in Mussorgsky’s “Boris Godunov”; and two performances of Wotan in “Walkure”.

Hotter appeared for one season at Lyric Opera Of Chicago: in 1961, he sang three performances of Pizarro in “Fidelio”.

Given the fact that Hotter experienced an insignificant American career, it is not surprising that he never enjoyed the exalted reputation in the U.S. that he commanded in Europe. However, it is puzzling—and disappointing—that so few American music-lovers recognize Hotter as one of the greatest singers of the 20th Century, a singer of unsurpassed accomplishment in the theater, in the concert hall and in the recital hall. When Hotter is remembered here today (when he is remembered at all), it is usually for Hotter’s past-his-prime Wotan as captured in Georg Solti’s complete “Ring” for Decca.

In Central Europe, Hotter’s greatness was widely recognized by the time he had reached his mid-twenties, an extraordinary age for a male singer to have achieved such renown. By the time Hotter reached his thirtieth birthday, he carried the fame usually reserved for a matinee idol or motion picture actor, a fact demonstrated by this popular postcard from the late 1930s.


The postcard photograph reveals Hotter to be a very handsome and very intelligent man. The photograph was taken in Hamburg and probably dates from 1937, 1938 or 1939, when Hotter was in his late twenties.

Hotter was an artist of the Hamburg Staatsoper from 1934 until 1945. Hotter’s level of accomplishment reached new peaks in 1937, when he sang his first Wotan—as a guest artist in Munich—to unprecedented acclaim. The 1937 Wotan performances sealed Hotter’s reputation, making him an international star virtually overnight. The postcard tribute was probably one of the incidental benefits of Hotter’s new-found fame after his great success as Wotan.

Another result of Hotter’s growing notoriety was a friendship with composer Richard Strauss, who began calling for Hotter to appear in Strauss operas from 1938 onward.


Hotter was in the premier casts of three operas of Strauss: “Friedenstag”, “Die Liebe Der Danae” and “Capriccio”. The role of Olivier in “Capriccio” was written specifically for Hotter, although Hotter assumed the role of La Roche in the first studio recording of the opera, made fifteen years after the work’s premiere.

“Die Liebe Der Danae”, Strauss’s last stage work, did not receive an “official” staging during the composer’s lifetime. Its premiere had been scheduled for The Salzburg Music Weeks in late summer 1944—the Nazis had stopped using the term “festival” in 1943, so music events scheduled for Salzburg in late summer 1944 were referred to as “The Salzburg Music Weeks”—but the attempted assassination of Hitler on July 20 resulted in the abrupt cancellation of all Salzburg performances that year (as well as cancellations of performances all over Germany).

Upon the pleading of conductor Clemens Krauss, authorities allowed one “public dress rehearsal” of “Die Liebe Der Danae” to proceed, an allowance granted largely because The German Reich already had been aggressively promoting Strauss’s eightieth birthday throughout 1944.

More than one notable photograph resulted from the “public dress rehearsal” of “Die Liebe Der Danae”. The photograph below presents three cast members—Horst Taubmann, Viorica Ursuleac and Hotter—onstage with the composer at the conclusion of the opera’s unofficial unveiling.


The “public dress rehearsal” of “Die Liebe Der Danae” was the occasion on which Strauss, famously, told members of the Vienna Philharmonic that he looked forward to seeing them in future, if possible—but in happier times and places.

In his memoirs, Hotter wrote eloquently and at length about the difficulty of maintaining a career in the performing arts in a totalitarian state—especially a totalitarian state in wartime. Hotter must have negotiated the hazards with skill, because he was never in danger from the authorities—as far as is known—and he was never considered “tainted” by The Period Of National Socialism after the war.

In addition to addressing in his memoirs life and politics in a totalitarian state, Hotter also addressed the practicalities and impracticalities of life in wartime Germany. The safety of his family was a constant concern, as was the need to earn a living, which became increasingly difficult as the war staggered to an ill-fated conclusion for Germany.

During the war years, Hotter traveled constantly on blacked-out overnight trains between Hamburg, Munich and Vienna, the three cities in which he most often worked. Such trains were always subject to attack by enemy bombers and fighters, with the result that Hotter never knew when—or whether—he might arrive safely at his destination.

As the war continued, and the air attacks become more and more frequent, Hotter found the nighttime train trips to be unbearable. Unable to sleep on the packed trains, Hotter would sit on his luggage and try to doze, waiting for the alarms that would send the passengers grabbing for their luggage and rushing off into the nearest fields or forests for cover as enemy planes approached.

Arriving at his destination, Hotter would check into his hotel (if it was still standing), nap with his bags at his side—and wait for the air raid sirens to sound and send him rushing off to the nearest shelter.