# opera help



## vlncto (Nov 26, 2012)

Recently I found the autograph album of the young Margarete Slezak (1901-1953), daughter of famous tenor Leo Slezak. The younf "Greterl" took this album with her between 1910 and 1920 and let friends and relatives write into it. That also included famous friends like Enrico Caruso, Artur Bodanzky, Geraldine Ferrar, Carl Flesch, Willy Burmester, and many others.

The following pictures show signatures which I couldn't decipher, but I have the hope that it might ring a bell for the one or other member of this forum. The Number 1 and 2 date from January 1918 and were signed in the Bristol Hotel in Vienna, a noble hotel at that time. Number 1 shows a Polish poem (and a German translation), so this could be a Polish musician (singer?). 
Number 3 was most likely signed on the sea passage to America on the "Kaiser Wilhelm II" in 1912, also a costly way to travel, so I expect all three signatures are from well-known celebreties (most likely somehow connected to opera). So if you have a clue, please drop a line.

*Nummer 1:*









*Nummer 2:*









*Nummer 3:*


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

The third is the signature of the baritone Antonio Scotti. See:https://www.lubranomusic.com/pages/books/24301/antonio-scotti/autograph-signature-a-scotti

His Wikipedia page states, "In 1912, Scotti's arrival in the United States with Pasquale Amato and William Hinshaw for his next Met season received extensive newspaper coverage". It was not the Kaiser Wilhelm II, however, it was the SS George Washington. Could it have been on that voyage that he signed this?


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## Taplow (Aug 13, 2017)

Further information ... The passenger list for the SS George Washington, 19th October 1912, Bremen to New York via Southampton and Cherbourg, available here lists "Mr. Antonio Scotti and Servant", but no Margarete or Leo Slezak.


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## vlncto (Nov 26, 2012)

Thanks for that important hint! You are right, it is Antonio Scotti, I checked pictures of his signature via internet search and it is him. 
I only suggested that the signature was made on the sea passage, because most of the entries in the album that date from 1912 are from that trip and often signed "on the Kaiser Wilhelm II". For Antonio Sconti this kind of entry is missing and I just made a guess. Now that I know the person it seems more likely that Margerete met him in New York before or after a performance at the Met (he sang there, Leo Slezak as well in 1912).


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