Lauritz Melchior (March 20, 1890 – March 18, 1973)
was a
Danish and later American opera
singer. He was the pre-eminent
Wagnerian
tenor of the late 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, and has since come to be
considered the quintessence of his voice type.
Biography
Born
Lauritz Lebrecht Hommel Melchior in Copenhagen,
Denmark
, the young Melchior was a boy soprano and amateur singer before starting
his first operatic vocal studies under Paul Bang at the Royal Opera
School in Copenhagen at the age of 18 in 1908.
In 1913, Melchior made his debut in the baritone role of Silvio in
Ruggero Leoncavallo's
Pagliacci at the
Royal Theatre (Det Kongelige Teater) in
Copenhagen. He sang mostly secondary baritone and bass roles for
the Royal Danish Opera and provincial Scandianavian opera companies
for the next few years.
Melchior with his children
One night, while on tour, Melchior helped an ailing soprano
performing in
Il trovatore by
singing a high C in the Act IV Leonora-di Luna duet. The Azucena of
that performance, the American contralto Mme
Charles Cahier, was impressed by the tone she
had heard and gave her young colleague sound advice: he was no
baritone, but a tenor "with the lid on." She even wrote to the
Royal Opera pleading that Melchior be given a sabbatical and a
stipend to restudy his voice. This he did between 1917 and 1918,
taking lessons from the noted Danish tenor
Vilhelm Herold (1865-1937) who had sung
Wagnerian roles in Covent Garden, Chicago and elsewhere from 1900
to 1915. This proved to be a turning point in Melchior's career.
His high baritone voice was recast into that of a low tenor, but
with a strong high extension. His second debut was on 8 October,
1918 in the title role of
Tannhäuser, also at the Royal
Opera in Copenhagen.
In 1920,
Melchior visited England to sing in an experimental radio broadcast
to the Scandinavian capital cities from the Marconi station in Chelmsford
. From 1920, Melchior was a frequent performer
in London, appearing at Sir Henry
Joseph Wood's Promenade
Concerts in Queens
Hall
. While at London he met the popular novelist
and passionate Wagnerite
Hugh Walpole,
who provided the fledgling
Heldentenor
with financial aid.
Additional studies under Victor Beigel, Ernst
Grenzebach and the legendary dramatic soprano of the Vienna Court
Opera
, Anna Bahr von Mildenburg, kept Melchior occupied
until 1923. Word of his talent spread and was heard of by
Cosima and Siegfried Wagner at Bayreuth
. There the re-opening of the Festival for
1924 was under preparation. Melchior was engaged to sing Siegmund
and Parsifal. This prestigious contract opened the way to several
other appearances such as a Wagner concert with
Frida Leider in Berlin in 1923. Around this
time several acoustic records were cut for Polydor.
On May 14,
1924 Lauritz Melchior made his debut, as Siegmund, at the Royal Opera
House
at Covent
Garden
in London. The result was a smashing
success.
Some weeks later Melchior made his debut on
the stage of the Festspielhaus in
Bayreuth in the roles of Siegmund and Parsifal. On
February 17, 1926 his first appearance at the Metropolitan Opera in
New York City took place. He sang Tannhäuser opposite
Maria Jeritza,
Friedrich Schorr,
Karin Branzell and
Michael Bohnen with
Artur Bodanzky conducting. Although he was
not adversely criticized, there was not much enthusiasm elicited by
this debut. In his first season at the Metropolitan opera, Melchior
sang only eight times. His second season brought only one
appearance.
To build up his repertory and gain more stage
experience, he accepted an engagement at the Hamburg State
Opera
, where he appeared as Lohengrin, Otello, Radames in Aida and Jean van Leyden in Le prophète. He also sung regularly
at other major German music theaters, like the State Operas of
Berlin
and Munich.
Although Melchior sang at most of the theatres and concert halls of
the
Western world during his long
career, he is perhaps best remembered as a member of the
Metropolitan Opera company where he sang
519 performances of Wagnerian roles between 1926 and 1950.
Melchior's breakthrough at the Metropolitan opera finally came when
he performed in
Tristan und
Isolde on March 20, 1929. From this point on his career
flourished. It was Lohengrin's Farewell which served as Melchior's
"
swan song" in his last stage performance,
on 2 February, 1950.
Melchior appeared at Covent Garden from 1924 to 1939, also as
Otello (opposite
Viorica Ursuleac
as Desdemona) and Florestan, besides the Wagnerian repertory. Also
at Covent Garden in 1932, he sang opposite popular soprano
Florence Easton in
Siegfried, the only time they
appeared together.
Other important stations of his career were
in the Buenos
Aires
(Teatro Colón
) (1931-1943), San
Francisco Opera (1934-1945) and Chicago Opera
(1934-1945).
Melchior made very many recordings, first as a baritone on Danish
HMV, then as a tenor for
Deutsche Grammophon(
Polydor) (1923-1930), English and German HMV
(1927-1935),
RCA Victor (1938-1941),
American
Columbia (1942-1950), and
lastly
Warner Brothers. His final
appearance with Danish radio was in 1960 with a performance of the
first act of
Die Walküre
to celebrate his 70th birthday, which was recorded and constitutes
a terrific souvenir of the indestructible, indeed almost
supernatural Melchior in full flight.
Some of Melchior's most notable colleagues in the opera houses of
the world included the
sopranos Frida Leider,
Kirsten Flagstad,
Lotte Lehmann,
Helen
Traubel,
Marjorie Lawrence and
Elisabeth Rethberg and conductors
Felix Weingartner,
Bruno Walter,
Wilhelm Furtwängler,
Fritz Reiner, Sir
Thomas Beecham,
Arturo Toscanini,
Erich Leinsdorf,
George Szell, and
Otto Klemperer.
Between
1944 and 1952, Melchior performed in 5 Hollywood
musical films for MGM and
Paramount Pictures and made
numerous US television appearances. In 1947, he put his
hand and footprints in cement in the forecourt of Grauman's
Chinese Theatre
in Hollywood.
Following his unofficial retirement around 1955, Melchior made
sporadic singing appearances.
In the late 1960s, he set up a fund through
Juilliard
for the training of potential heldentenors called
"The Lauritz Melchior Heldentenor Foundation."
In the summer of 1972, Melchior conducted the
San Francisco Opera Orchestra at Sigmund
Stern Grove in the
Radetzky March by
Johann Strauss I as part of the 50th
anniversary celebration of the company; this was one of his last
public appearances.
An
American citizen since 1947, Melchior died in Santa
Monica, California
in 1973. He was put to rest in the Assistens
Kirkegaard
cemetery in Copenhagen.
Melchior is the father of Danish-American novelist and filmmaker
Ib Melchior, who has written a biography
about him and for years has fought a legal battle to reclaim the
Melchior family estate Chossewitz in Germany, which was confiscated
by East Germany.
Filmography
Bibliography
- Emmons, Shirley: Tristanissimo: The
Authorized Biography of Heroic Tenor Lauritz Melchior (New
York, Schirmer Books, 1990)
- Ib Melchior: Lauritz Melchior: The Golden Years of
Bayreuth (Baskerville Publishers, 2003)
References
External links
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