Recollections of Lehmann Bill Swan

Mr. Swan studied with Mme. Lehmann, sang professionally in Califorma and recently wrote that "after an early (and voluntary) retirement from singing, I worked as executive assistant to Raymond Burr (actor)... for many years." Here are excerpts from his recollections of LL.

I first heard her at the old Philharmonic Auditorium in Los Angeles. I shall never forget the impression she made on me. She could do more within one note than most singers could do with an entire phrase...I wrote to her of my admiration and was surprised and elated to receive an answer. (I was to learn later that one of her personal attributes was her great sense of responsibility to her correspondents.)

Studying with Lotte Lehmann was a lesson in life, not just a lesson in singing...Over the years, and after the teacher-pupil relationship had come to an end, a beautiful friendship developed. Lotte came to depend on me for her arrivals and depatures from the Los Angeles airport and train depot. [Once] during the two hour drive to Santa Barbara we had a marvelous time of conversation...I told her I had only heard her once in opera and that was...in Der Rosenkavalier, her final performance of it. She exclaimed, "Oh, Bill, you mean you never saw my Sieglinde?" That was Lotte. No pretense, no false modesty. She knew that she was the greatest Sieglinde of all time.

Lotte loved to tell jokes, and she was a marvelous raconteur...At my urging she would reminisce about the Vienna Opera and other highlights of her long and illustrious career. I say...at my urging, because Lotte never lived in the past. She was too much a person of the present and had so many new worlds to conquer-- teaching, painting, writing--that she didn't have time for the past.

At one of Lotte's master classes at...the California Institute of Technology, the great Marian Anderson was a guest in the audience...I thought at the time how wonderful it was for one of the world's greatest singers to sit in rapt attention while another...instructed a masterclass. Lotte painted a beautiful likeness of Marian Anderson in watercolor and gave it to me. A unique treasure indeed.

In 1958 I made...arrangements to meet Lotte in Vienna. Being there with Lotte Lehmann was truly an experience not to be forgorten. Everywhere we went she was immediately recognized. Everyone from doormen to royalty clamored to get a glimpse of her or to speak to her.

A dark shadow passed over the entire planet earth at six o'clock in the morning of August 26th, 1976 when Lotte Lehmann died in her sleep at her beautiful and beloved Santa Barbara home. It was a great surprise to me when...I received a notice from the law firm in Santa Barbara informing me that I had been remembered in the will of Lotte Lehmann...It was, I'm sure, Lotte's way of saying thank you for the trips to the airport, the railroad depot...and, too, an expression of devotion and esteem.