Eighteen Song Cycles:
Studies in Their Interpretation

by Neville Cardus (a foreword to her book)

In opera Lotte Lehmann was not so much a singer who could act but, rather, a great protean actress who could sing with a voice richly engaging the ear and, by its range of colour and inflection, arresting to the sense of theatre and to the histrionic imagination. In the beginning was, for Lehmann, the word, the deed, the scene, the personal presence. She was not an opera singer who, for various parts, disguised herself externally as Sieglinde, Leonore, the Marschallin and the rest; she identified herself with each part, became as though transfused, blood and mind, into the part. She was not just a 'character' actress, drawing a blank cheque on our preconceptions. Her range was wide; she personified Sophie, Oktavian and the Marschallin over the years in Der Rosenkavalier. She was Rosalinde in Die Fledermaus to the vivacious essence of Rosalinde; she was Leonore in Fidelio, living image of 'das ewig Weibliche'. She ranged through the entire gamut of emotion.

As she came on the darkened stage at the beginning of Act I of Die Walküre, and saw the exhausted Siegmund lying prone, and whispered: 'Ein fremder Mann', we could almost hear the heart of Sieglinde beating. She leaned forward, the whole woman of her expressing curiosity, apprehension and—also— an intuitive, prophetic sympathy, an unaware sister-love. I recall with vivid return of reality her marvellous moment when Sieglinde says: 'Hush! Let me listen to thy voice. I heard it as a child'—('O, still! Lass mich der Stimme lauschen; mich dünkt, ihren Klang hört' ich als Kind'). The voice of Lehmann passed almost into silence as she sang 'hört' ich als Kind'; we could feel her mind going back in time and listening within itself for long-forgotten tendernesses. Then Lehmann gave a quick gasp of ecstasy, and her 'doch nein!' caught at our heartstrings.

As the Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten of Strauss, she mingled a poignant sympathy with her conception of the woman's discontent and sexual self-flagellation. As the Marschallin she was all tight-lipped resignation as she pronounced the word 'Vorbei!' As the Marschallin, in Act I, she was a young girl again, laughing capriciously when the unexpected intruder is not the Feldmarschall, her husband, but merely a visitor. 'Es ist ein Besuch!' The waltz phrases in the music became incarnate in Lehmann; the whole woman of her danced.

At a rehearsal of Fidelio Toscanini found himself transfixed by Lehmann, and he temporarily, for a split minute, forgot his sway over the orchestra, and everybody else. He actually relaxed his baton and cried out to Lehmann: 'You are an artist!' It was not Toscanini's custom to bandy words and compliments with opera singers.

She was the artist whose style was the woman herself, a richly natured woman, sensitive and fine-minded and civilized. She is still Lehmann, the fully realized woman, stored with experience, afflicted by physical pain, philosophical and endowed with healing humour. Herself, she is a gifted writer of poetry, and a painter. What is bred in the bone comes out even in an opera singer. Her love of words was a potent factor of her artistic appeal, as I have already hinted. The imperishable stuff of Lehmann is preserved in one of her verses:

So hört' ich wieder deiner Stimme Ton,
Die einst mein Herz erzittern machte . . .
Ich lachte
Ob der versunknen Illusion.
Wie seltsam: ich versteh'es kaum
Dass dieser schien der einzig Eine . . .
und doch: ich weine Um einen toten Traum.

And I heard again the sound of your voice
which once made my heart tremble . . .
I laughed
at the lost illusion.
How strange: I can scarce realize
that he seemed to me the only one . . .
And yet, I weep
over a dead dream.

As a Lieder singer she did not consistently satisfy the purists. She enlarged the canvas. Her interpretation of 'Erlkönig' rendered as much homage to Goethe as to Schubert. Myself, I had the same embracing experiences at a Lehmann Lieder recital as at her opera reincarnations. In this book she bestows on us her harvestings—enriching, I think, not only to students of Lieder but to the oldest of music lovers. It is wise, wiser maybe than she knows. It teaches to the purist, insists on the individuality of the learner. But, more rewarding still, it is a book which reflects and sustains our impressions, our devotion to and admiration of, Lotte Lehmann. Anyhow, I speak for myself.

NEVILLE CARDUS

London
June, 1971