We are listening to the broadcast of November 13th 1936. But in the original recording, commentator Marcia Davenport start talking exactly at the point when Wotan starts singing 'Geh' hin, Knecht!', thus inexcusably ruining the mood. This leads to a premature fade out of the broadcast. Apparently time was up. This should occur at 1:12:58 . However, in this video we shift over to the performance of December 6th 1941 of the Metropolitan Opera. Schorr is still singing Wotan, but Leinsdorf is now at the helm instead of Reiner. You can find this particular recording at th-cam.com/video/j3OAHSWs5-4/w-d-xo.html
I believe it was in this performance that Flagstad watched Lehmann from the wings and then didn't say a word to her after the performance. Lotte was royally pissed!
@@captainamerica-qw1gl Flagstad said nothing after watching the world's greatest Sieglinde ever from the wings. Rude. She also let it be known that she thought Lehmann's acting in Act I indecent. As for Lehmann beiing pathologically jealous of Flagstad, the opposite is likely to be true. Read the following: "To make matters worse, Flagstad was angry at Lehmann. Someone named John Hastings wrote a letter to The New York Times, printed January 24, 1937, praising Lehmann at Flagstad’s expense. Flagstad jumped to the conclusion that Lotte had personally instigated an intrigue against her. That ended cordial relations between them, at least for a while. It is a fact that Lotte had nothing to do with the letter. It did her more harm than good. In any case, here are some extracts: "At long last the critics have paid adequate, long overdue homage to one of the few genuinely great artists of the age, Mme. Lotte Lehmann…. The epidemic of idolatry for Mme. Flagstad as the greatest of modern Wagnerians, if not, in fact, for a vast percentage of operagoers the only Wagnerian, is preposterous and entirely out of proportion to her artistic and histrionic, as exclusive of her vocal, endowment. It has been more than a little difficult to understand the general critical agreement on Flagstad’s supposedly limitless imaginative insight and the likewise universal conspiracy of silence toward Lehmann’s interpretive prowess. It seems, at least to this one finite music-lover, that Flagstad’s pre-eminence begins and ends with one bewilderingly simple thing, and that is a great voice perfectly produced and miraculously inexhaustible Her acting is straightforward and of refreshingly natural simplicity, which modern opera can well use, but it assuredly exhibits none of the many soaring, mystical qualities of sheer inspired creation which are so frequently attributed to her….One critic [Lawrence Gilman, in The New York Herald-Tribune], when speaking of Mme. Flagstad’s singing of the Liebestod, went to far as to say that “the whole intolerable pathos of the moment is in her singing of the little grace-note before the B on “Freunde,” which bids fair to be a new high in preciosity. With Lehmann one does not think of such terms as simplicity, naturalness, vocal perfection, or any of the other merits for which one might justly praise Mme. Flagstad, because somehow her vastly inspirational and deeply intuitive art does not lend itself easily to such facile clichés. One might, indeed, almost say of Lehmann that mere vocal perfection is beneath her. [That line stirred another storm!] The absorption in a mood that is exclusively her province is so complete that faultlessness of production ceases to be a criterion. What is more, her acting is predominantly so inspirational and instinctive that naturalness and simplicity, being attributes of a method at all times conscious and preconceived, prove useless as a basis of appraisal. Her voice is one of ineffable warmth, lustrous and filled with endless variety of shimmering nuances and colors, a voice which, even though not always flawlessly employed, succeeds in conveying undreamt-of revelations and beauties in the music that she sings. Her movements about the stage bear the authentic mark of spontaneity and actual experience of every implication of a role. Who, then, that has seen and heard what Mme. Lehmann can do…can doubt that here is the greatest singing actress of our time?"
We agree with the relative merits of the two singers, but Flagstad’s comment about Lehmann acting on stage as another would only act with her husband was not meant to imply it was indecent. Lehmann was initially quite disappointed that she was not more of a success in America. She was used to being number one, even if it meant working for Gehring. She employed Constance Hope as a publicity agent, and she may have been involved in creating a competition that was unnecessary. Ms. Hope certainly angered Flagstad by sending a bill for photos when she was not employed by her. The critics eventually gave Lehmann’s Sieglinde its due, but when Flagstad made her debut, they cited Flagstad’s as being specially memorable.
@@philzmusic8098 You are obviously ignorant of Lehmann’s fully willing negotiations with Goering in 1933 or 1934. She took his plane to Berlin, negotiated an extensive, rapacious deal which gave her generous sums for guest performances, a pension, a town house, a large country villa, and a professorship for her brother. It turned around when the contract arrived containing only part of what was negotiated. When Lehmann pointed this out to Goering, he responded that she should trust him. She said she trusted him but did not know what would happen if he wasn’t in power. He then went to a rage and said she would never sing in Germany again. She did this while her Jewish manager and publicist were negotiating with San Francisco and told her the American opera audiences would not look well on it. She lost that contract to Rethberg. Lehmann was a wonderful singing actress and recitalist, but she was a dishonest person and a repeated adulteress who cuckolded her husband within a few years of her marriage.
Do you have the excerpts of Götterdämmerung that Furtwängler recorded in London in 1937 ?
This recording can be found in pieces on TH-cam here: th-cam.com/play/OLAK5uy_m55Lmopb1TiyhtS_co3DZlRTdNDDQObSo.html
Yes I know this one, but there are cuts at some parts and it’s difficult to fix. I would like to have a perhaps better source.
I kept wondering who that middle-aged woman in the middle of the photograph was, until I realized it was Melchior!
Hahaha!
We are listening to the broadcast of November 13th 1936. But in the original recording, commentator Marcia Davenport start talking exactly at the point when Wotan starts singing 'Geh' hin, Knecht!', thus inexcusably ruining the mood. This leads to a premature fade out of the broadcast. Apparently time was up. This should occur at 1:12:58 .
However, in this video we shift over to the performance of December 6th 1941 of the Metropolitan Opera. Schorr is still singing Wotan, but Leinsdorf is now at the helm instead of Reiner. You can find this particular recording at th-cam.com/video/j3OAHSWs5-4/w-d-xo.html
I believe it was in this performance that Flagstad watched Lehmann from the wings and then didn't say a word to her after the performance. Lotte was royally pissed!
Pardon us, but what did Lehmann say to Flagstad! Lehmann was pathologically jealous of Flagstad outshining her.
@@captainamerica-qw1gl Flagstad said nothing after watching the world's greatest Sieglinde ever from the wings. Rude. She also let it be known that she thought Lehmann's acting in Act I indecent. As for Lehmann beiing pathologically jealous of Flagstad, the opposite is likely to be true. Read the following:
"To make matters worse, Flagstad was angry at Lehmann. Someone named John Hastings wrote a letter to The New York Times, printed January 24, 1937, praising Lehmann at Flagstad’s expense. Flagstad jumped to the conclusion that Lotte had personally instigated an intrigue against her. That ended cordial relations between them, at least for a while. It is a fact that Lotte had nothing to do with the letter. It did her more harm than good. In any case, here are some extracts:
"At long last the critics have paid adequate, long overdue homage to one of the few genuinely great artists of the age, Mme. Lotte Lehmann….
The epidemic of idolatry for Mme. Flagstad as the greatest of modern Wagnerians, if not, in fact, for a vast percentage of operagoers the only Wagnerian, is preposterous and entirely out of proportion to her artistic and histrionic, as exclusive of her vocal, endowment. It has been more than a little difficult to understand the general critical agreement on Flagstad’s supposedly limitless imaginative insight and the likewise universal conspiracy of silence toward Lehmann’s interpretive prowess. It seems, at least to this one finite music-lover, that Flagstad’s pre-eminence begins and ends with one bewilderingly simple thing, and that is a great voice perfectly produced and miraculously inexhaustible
Her acting is straightforward and of refreshingly natural simplicity, which modern opera can well use, but it assuredly exhibits none of the many soaring, mystical qualities of sheer inspired creation which are so frequently attributed to her….One critic [Lawrence Gilman, in The New York Herald-Tribune], when speaking of Mme. Flagstad’s singing of the Liebestod, went to far as to say that “the whole intolerable pathos of the moment is in her singing of the little grace-note before the B on “Freunde,” which bids fair to be a new high in preciosity.
With Lehmann one does not think of such terms as simplicity, naturalness, vocal perfection, or any of the other merits for which one might justly praise Mme. Flagstad, because somehow her vastly inspirational and deeply intuitive art does not lend itself easily to such facile clichés. One might, indeed, almost say of Lehmann that mere vocal perfection is beneath her. [That line stirred another storm!] The absorption in a mood that is exclusively her province is so complete that faultlessness of production ceases to be a criterion. What is more, her acting is predominantly so inspirational and instinctive that naturalness and simplicity, being attributes of a method at all times conscious and preconceived, prove useless as a basis of appraisal.
Her voice is one of ineffable warmth, lustrous and filled with endless variety of shimmering nuances and colors, a voice which, even though not always flawlessly employed, succeeds in conveying undreamt-of revelations and beauties in the music that she sings. Her movements about the stage bear the authentic mark of spontaneity and actual experience of every implication of a role. Who, then, that has seen and heard what Mme. Lehmann can do…can doubt that here is the greatest singing actress of our time?"
We agree with the relative merits of the two singers, but Flagstad’s comment about Lehmann acting on stage as another would only act with her husband was not meant to imply it was indecent. Lehmann was initially quite disappointed that she was not more of a success in America. She was used to being number one, even if it meant working for Gehring. She employed Constance Hope as a publicity agent, and she may have been involved in creating a competition that was unnecessary. Ms. Hope certainly angered Flagstad by sending a bill for photos when she was not employed by her. The critics eventually gave Lehmann’s Sieglinde its due, but when Flagstad made her debut, they cited Flagstad’s as being specially memorable.
@@captainamerica-qw1gl To say that Lehmann worked for Göring is a gross insult. She was a staunch anti-Nazi.
@@philzmusic8098 You are obviously ignorant of Lehmann’s fully willing negotiations with Goering in 1933 or 1934. She took his plane to Berlin, negotiated an extensive, rapacious deal which gave her generous sums for guest performances, a pension, a town house, a large country villa, and a professorship for her brother. It turned around when the contract arrived containing only part of what was negotiated. When Lehmann pointed this out to Goering, he responded that she should trust him. She said she trusted him but did not know what would happen if he wasn’t in power. He then went to a rage and said she would never sing in Germany again. She did this while her Jewish manager and publicist were negotiating with San Francisco and told her the American opera audiences would not look well on it.
She lost that contract to Rethberg. Lehmann was a wonderful singing actress and recitalist, but she was a dishonest person and a repeated adulteress who cuckolded her husband within a few years of her marriage.
I don’t think Wagner has _ever_ been popular in the US.