# Round Two: Lehar's Vilja Lied. Schwarzkopf vs Steber



## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Die lustige Witwe, IFL 12, Act 2: "Nun laßt uns aber wie dahein". "Es lebt' eine Vilja" (Viljalied) ... "Mi velimo dase dase Veslimo!" (Hanna, Chor) · Philharmonia Orchestra





*ELEANOR STEBER SINGS -VILIA franz lehar 1945*


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Both sung with incredible vocal beauty. Steber's version felt more intimate and she sold the aria more in my humble opinion.
I really liked Studer in this but it was with a piano which is problematic with this crowd.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Steber's version is beautiful. How could it be otherwise with a voice of such beauty and such a musical singer, but Schwarzkopf's is something else. The level of artistry on display here from soloist, orchestra, chorus and conductor is just on another level. The Schwarzkopf is taken from her second studio recording of the complete operetta, which remains to this day the greatest recording of it ever made, brilliantly capturing the atmosphere of a stage performance right from the moment the orchestra strikes the opening measures of the introduction. I've lived with it all my life as my parents had the LPs. Later so did I and I now have it on CD. For me no other recording has come close, not even Gardiner, which is absolutely complete and textually more accurate.

If I say the Steber performance evoked for me a whiff of Hollywood and some of those movies of the 1930s and 1940s that isn't meant as a criticism, but I think of the Schwarzkopf as echt-Viennese, whilst somehow lifting the music onto a different plane. Schwarzkopf, as witness all the recordings of Viennese operetta she made, had a particular affinity for the genre and she lavished as much care on it as she did on Mozart and Strauss. Her phrasing and shading are just out of this world and I have no problem awarding her the prize.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I recall an interview, not quite sure it was Schwarzkopf, could have been Rothenberger or someone else, in the late 1980s or so when they would appear on German radio where this singer said, operetta was as difficult as Mozart and one had to take it as seriously with great care because it would become silly/trivial otherwise. Nevertheless, I think Schwarzkopf sounds a bit mannered and artificial and the first Vilja phrase at ca 1:20 in the video has almost no clear consonants and the "o" sounds bad, like "uh". Sure, the soft high notes are stunning and it is very well done.
It truly was a rich culture when silly operettas could have such jewels in them...
I am no operetta buff but I quickly checked some on youtube and Hilde Güden (Decca, I think recital with Stolz?) and Lucia Popp might be interesting options.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> I recall an interview, not quite sure it was Schwarzkopf, could have been Rothenberger or someone else, in the late 1980s or so when they would appear on German radio where this singer said, operetta was as difficult as Mozart and one had to take it as seriously with great care because it would become silly/trivial otherwise. Nevertheless, I think Schwarzkopf sounds a bit mannered and artificial and the first Vilja phrase at ca 1:20 in the video has almost no clear consonants and the "o" sounds bad, like "uh". Sure, the soft high notes are stunning and it is very well done.
> It truly was a rich culture when silly operettas could have such jewels in them...
> I am no operetta buff but I quickly checked some on youtube and Hilde Güden (Decca, I think recital with Stolz?) and Lucia Popp might be interesting options.


Sometimes I think people look for the "mannerisms" and "artificiality" in Schwarzkopf's singing. I don't so I don't hear them, as I do sometimes in the singing of, for instance, Renée Fleming. In any case one person's mannerisms are another's idiosyncracies. What I do hear is a wonderfully subtle and nuanced performance which perhaps brings out more in the music than most suspect is there. To be honest, I've heard _Vilja _so often, sung well, sung badly and sung just well enough, that it usually bores me to tears. Schwarzkopf's version is the only one I've heard that makes me sit up and listen.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Sometimes I think people look for the "mannerisms" and "artificiality" in Schwarzkopf's singing. I don't so I don't hear them, as I do sometimes in the singing of, for instance, Renée Fleming. In any case one person's mannerisms are another's idiosyncracies. What I do hear is a wonderfully subtle and nuanced performance which perhaps brings out more in the music than most suspect is there. To be honest, I've heard _Vilja _so often, sung well, sung badly and sung just well enough, that it usually bores me to tears. Schwarzkopf's version is the only one I've heard that makes me sit up and listen.


I love the gentlemanly way so many of you express your differences of opinion like the two of you did here. It is what sets our forum apart from another forum I won't mention that I belonged to before this. Have a nice day.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

What I missed in Schwarzkopf’s performance is the way that, in another performance, she pronounced the word “Vilja,” or more properly the “J” in Vilja. I admired that in that other traversal, where she really did pronounce it distinctly, as I’d never heard another singer do. If I remember correctly, Legge starred his wife and Gedda in most of the “Champagne Operetta” series. 

Steber sings it in English, beautifully, as she did most things she sang - she was a most musical singer indeed. I am glad she’s having a renaissance of sorts here at the Talk Classical opera forum. She gets my enthusiastic vote.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

MAS said:


> What I missed in Schwarzkopf’s performance is the way that, in another performance, she pronounced the word “Vilja,” or more properly the “J” in Vilja. I admired that in that other traversal, where she really did pronounce it distinctly, as I’d never heard another singer do. If I remember correctly, Legge starred his wife and Gedda in most of the “Champagne Operetta” series.
> 
> Steber sings it in English, beautifully, as she did most things she sang - she was a most musical singer indeed. I am glad she’s having a renaissance of sorts here at the Talk Classical opera forum. She gets my enthusiastic vote.


I did a massage therapy session with a well known singer when he was in town for Seattle Opera and he had a CD volume out of Steber collected works. I think people are coming back to her more.


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## ALT (Mar 1, 2021)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I really liked Studer in this but it was with a piano which is problematic with this crowd.


Why or how is the piano accompaniment problematic? Far more problematic to me is the piece sung in English. It’s like hearing Arabella and works like it in English. Not a good fit. Never. Ever. *Like Wagner in Italian*. It’s a no-go.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Masterly performances from both singers but I’m with Tsaras on this for precisely the same reasons. I’ve never really understood the ‘arch and mannered’ criticisms aimed at Dame Elizabeth in much the same way as those ‘too emphasised and over-worked’ criticisms of D. F-D. You would give a kidney to have such singers abroad today. 😎


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Non sequitur. It doesn't matter that one might be happy to have a Schwarzkopf today. Back then one had Grümmer, Güden and Della Casa to name but three strongly overlapping in repertoire with Schwarzkopf who didn't share the mannerisms (although sometimes the "cool"/aloofness).

I like Steber's singing but I agree that it does not sound good in English. I wrote a response in the other thread that I lost. The translation is pretty good, keeps the structure but the vowels or all changed, even switched around, from dark to bright vowel "Waldmägdelein" to reverse "witch of the wood" and should/would for fass/lass.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Kreisler jr said:


> Non sequitur. It doesn't matter that one might be happy to have a Schwarzkopf today. Back then one had Grümmer, Güden and Della Casa to name but three strongly overlapping in repertoire with Schwarzkopf who didn't share the mannerisms (although sometimes the "cool"/aloofness).
> 
> I like Steber's singing but I agree that it does not sound good in English. I wrote a response in the other thread that I lost. The translation is pretty good, keeps the structure but the vowels or all changed, even switched around, from dark to bright vowel "Waldmägdelein" to reverse "witch of the wood" and should/would for fass/lass.


I would prefer the aria in German, but at the time, radio performances were done in the vernacular, and the “singing translation” was as good as possible - the people must understand the words! While English is a difficult language to sing, Steber does as well as I’ve heard - I’ve heard better only at the English National Opera.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> Non sequitur. It doesn't matter that one might be happy to have a Schwarzkopf today. Back then one had Grümmer, Güden and Della Casa to name but three strongly overlapping in repertoire with Schwarzkopf who didn't share the mannerisms (although sometimes the "cool"/aloofness).


That may be true, but it's also true that there are some of us who prefer Schwarzkopf with all her "idiosyncracies", a word I prefer to "mannerisms", to many of the singers of her generation. Personally I prefer her to both Güden and Della Casa, though not always to Grümmer.


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

ALT said:


> Why or how is the piano accompaniment problematic? Far more problematic to me is the piece sung in English. It’s like hearing Arabella and works like it in English. Not a good fit. Never. Ever. Like Wagner in Italian. It’s a no-go.


Sometimes "in English" is the entry price we have to pay to hear something that's very, very good. Is your reference to _Arabella_ in conjunction with the 1955 Met broadcast with Steber, Gueden, Peters, London, Sullivan/Kempe--the one Peter G. Davis calls "perhaps the most glorious representation of Steber's voice in its glowing maturity" (_The American Opera Singer_, p 408 - and the others aren't bad either)?. If so, I'll have to fall back on the old collegiate favorite for an impasse, "Authorities Differ".

As for the translation Steber uses here, it's by Adrian Ross, from the London premiere in June 1907 and then the US one four months later. The American one in particular was a huge success and hung on for revivals for half a century, by which time the idiom was starting to seem "dated", and then the new translations started. None I've heard seems better to me, and by now the Ross translation seems a better fit as being of an age with the original--even down to the men's ensemble,

You may study her ways as you can,
But a woman's too much for a man!
It is deeper than diving for pearls,
Courting girls, girls, girls, girls, girls!
--Oh, the women! Darling women!--
With her fair flaxen hair, eyes of blue,
She's a long way too knowing for you, 
--Oh, the women! Blow the women! --
She is dark, or she's fair, 
She may smile or may frown,
Never mind, you will get done brown!

Alt-Wien it ain't, but old Broadway has its own charms.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Kreisler jr said:


> Non sequitur. It doesn't matter that one might be happy to have a Schwarzkopf today. Back then one had Grümmer, Güden and Della Casa to name but three strongly overlapping in repertoire with Schwarzkopf who didn't share the mannerisms (although sometimes the "cool"/aloofness).
> 
> I like Steber's singing but I agree that it does not sound good in English. I wrote a response in the other thread that I lost. The translation is pretty good, keeps the structure but the vowels or all changed, even switched around, from dark to bright vowel "Waldmägdelein" to reverse "witch of the wood" and should/would for fass/lass.


Oh cripes. Have I upset the grammar police?
If we shadows have offended think but this and all is mended. 
It’s not theses we are all writing here, they are posts on a music thread that require nothing more than expressing what’s on our minds at that particular moment. So what if my comment didn’t ‘follow’ on from my previous statement. If I had a pound for every……..😂


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## ewilkros (8 mo ago)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Sometimes I think people look for the "mannerisms" and "artificiality" in Schwarzkopf's singing. I don't so I don't hear them, as I do sometimes in the singing of, for instance, Renée Fleming. In any case one person's mannerisms are another's idiosyncracies. What I do hear is a wonderfully subtle and nuanced performance which perhaps brings out more in the music than most suspect is there...


I think the accusations of "mannered", "artificial", etc., may be hang-ons from what one perhaps saw rather than heard in some of her late-career stage appearances. Here's video of her Vilja-Lied from a "Viennese Night" with Willy Boskovsky on Canadian TV, October, 1963:






She's got the Charm cranked up to eleven and it's a bit much. But avert your eyes and it's wonderfully _sung_--the hummed bit where the chorus should go towards the end has got me sold.

By the way, something has happened and the first verse has been broken off the start of this YouTube clip--does anyone know whether the whole thing is posted somewhere? Source is from a VAI DVD--









Elisabeth Schwarzkopf: A Viennese Evening (DVD)


Check out the deal on Elisabeth Schwarzkopf: A Viennese Evening (DVD) at VAIMUSIC.COM




www.vaimusic.com


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Such gorgeous singing! Eleanor Steber's English language version transports me to the world of Sigmund Romberg, Victor Herbert, Jeannette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy. It's a pleasant place to be transported to, so no gripes, but I prefer to be in Lehar's world. Schwarzkopf embodies it as well as anyone could, and I have no difficulty preferring her. If I were to say more it would only duplicate what Tsaraslondon said, but he knows the work and the singer better than I.


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## Parsifal98 (Apr 29, 2020)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Sometimes I think people look for the "mannerisms" and "artificiality" in Schwarzkopf's singing. I don't so I don't hear them, as I do sometimes in the singing of, for instance, Renée Fleming. In any case one person's mannerisms are another's idiosyncracies. What I do hear is a wonderfully subtle and nuanced performance which perhaps brings out more in the music than most suspect is there. To be honest, I've heard _Vilja _so often, sung well, sung badly and sung just well enough, that it usually bores me to tears. Schwarzkopf's version is the only one I've heard that makes me sit up and listen.



I disagree with your first sentence. It is dismissing of those who hear things differently than you and who may be right, or at least partially right, in their observations. Many people hailing from different times an backgrounds have qualified Schwarzkopf’s singing as being mannered and arch. It would be improbable that only people “looking for” her mannerisms would make such observations. And because there is no smoke without fire, then there might be a bit of truth to said observations. I personally hear how her vowels can be unpure ( “aw” and “uhs” instead of clear “a” and “o”). This can make her sound like she is “meowing”. I also hear how her middle voice lacks clarity and can sometimes sounds muddy. I think the word “mannered” in her case mostly refers to the faults above. It alters her prononciation and singing and can make her sound arch. But I also hear how these faults do not diminish her artistry nor musical intelligence. She did well with the technique that she developed for herself, but I believe it is wrong to present her as a perfect vocal technician.


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## ALT (Mar 1, 2021)

Woodduck said:


> ….but I prefer to be in Lehar's world. Schwarzkopf embodies it as well as anyone could, and I have no difficulty preferring her.


And therein lies the crux.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

Parsifal98 said:


> I personally hear how her vowels can be unpure ( “aw” and “uhs” instead of clear “a” and “o”). This can make her sound like she is “meowing”.


As I wrote, I hear these at first listen and perceive them as relative faults and I don't know ANYTHING technical about singing nor do have any experience with it.
And it doesn't matter that much if she is very good otherwise or how mediocre other singers are, it's something that sticks out to me and that I dislike and that other singers have done different/better.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Parsifal98 said:


> I disagree with your first sentence. It is dismissing of those who hear things differently than you and who may be right, or at least partially right, in their observations. Many people hailing from different times an backgrounds have qualified Schwarzkopf’s singing as being mannered and arch. It would be improbable that only people “looking for” her mannerisms would make such observations. And because there is no smoke without fire, then there might be a bit of truth to said observations. I personally hear how her vowels can be unpure ( “aw” and “uhs” instead of clear “a” and “o”). This can make her sound like she is “meowing”. I also hear how her middle voice lacks clarity and can sometimes sounds muddy. I think the word “mannered” in her case mostly refers to the faults above. It alters her prononciation and singing and can make her sound arch. But I also hear how these faults do not diminish her artistry nor musical intelligence. She did well with the technique that she developed for herself, but I believe it is wrong to present her as a perfect vocal technician.


He did say "sometimes"...  

I would say that Schwarzkopf is an artist in whom the conceptual intellect is dominant and tends to direct the manner in which feeling is expressed. She is the opposite of, say, Elisabeth Grummer, whose expression seems to proceed spontaneously from feeling, unmediated by thought. Neither of these is a pure type, of course, but on the whole Grummer's art conceals art - conceals the intellectual process by which art is made - while Schwarzkopf's often seems to revel in it. (I'm reminded of Spencer Tracy's advice to Katharine Hepburn: "Never let them catch you acting.") Listeners respond to these artistic temperaments according to their own ways of thinking and feeling; artifice can be a barrier to enjoyment if you don't enjoy that kind of art, or if the manner of expression seems incongruous with the nature of the music. I can enjoy both, preferring one to the other according to the music being interpreted, or the operatic character being portrayed. Schwarzkopf is incomparable in projecting worldly sophistication - Viennese operetta types or Strauss's urbane heroines such as the Marschallin and Arabella - while Grummer is perfectly endearing portraying innocence, as in Agathe, Elsa and Elisabeth. But it can be fascinating to listen to singers work against type, and this is true of Schwarzkopf - and, to a degree, Callas. I can never really believe that either of them is a daisy-gathering, cow-milking maiden from the paysage, but their efforts to convince us that they are what they weren't born to be are often quite brilliant and always worth hearing.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> He did say "sometimes"...
> 
> I would say that Schwarzkopf is an artist in whom the conceptual intellect is dominant and tends to direct the manner in which feeling is expressed. She is the opposite of, say, Elisabeth Grummer, whose expression seems to proceed spontaneously from feeling, unmediated by thought. Neither of these is a pure type, of course, but on the whole Grummer's art conceals art - conceals the intellectual process by which art is made - while Schwarzkopf's often seems to revel in it. (I'm reminded of Spencer Tracy's advice to Katharine Hepburn: "Never let them catch you acting.") Listeners respond to these artistic temperaments according to their own ways of thinking and feeling; artifice can be a barrier to enjoyment if you don't enjoy that kind of art, or if the manner of expression seems incongruous with the nature of the music. I can enjoy both, preferring one to the other according to the music being interpreted, or the operatic character being portrayed. Schwarzkopf is incomparable in projecting worldly sophistication - Viennese operetta types or Strauss's urbane heroines such as the Marschallin and Arabella - while Grummer is perfectly endearing portraying innocence, as in Agathe, Elsa and Elisabeth. But it can be fascinating to listen to singers work against type, and this is true of Schwarzkopf - and, to a degree, Callas. I can never really believe that either of them is a daisy-gathering, cow-milking maiden from the paysage, but their efforts to convince us that they are what they weren't born to be are often quite brilliant and always worth hearing.


Thank you. Yes I did say "sometimes" and I think my statement has a lot of truth to it.

I've heard the term "mannered" used to describe Schwarzkopf's singing for so long that it's become part of music mythology. Almost before you can get the word Schwarzkopf out, someone will be saying, "Oh but she's so mannered", by which, presumably, they mean there is a surfeit of artifice in her performances. There are times, I admit, when the charge is justified, but equallly (and I'd venture to suggest, more often than not) it is not. In certain repertoire (the operas of Strauss and Mozart, the Lieder of Wolf and Strauss, for instance) I find her incomparable, and in operetta she elevates the music so that it becomes music I actually want to listen to. Of all the performances of Lehár's ever so popular (too popular?) _Vilja_, we've been listening to of late, hers is the only one that keeps my interest, that leaves me hanging on her every note. So there is some discoloration on a couple of vowels. So what? With some singers you'd be hard pressed to make out any words at all. Do we call them "mannered"? 

Both performances here, I would suggest, are a good deal better than the two we heard before, but, as Woodduck and I both intimated in earlier posts, where Steber takes us to the Hollywood of Jeanette MacDonald and her ilk (a perfectly nice place to be), Schwarzkopf, singing in the orginal language with the original orchestration, takes us back to Vienna at the turn of the century, which is where the piece belongs.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

I'll choose Schwarzkopf, because I like German.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

Is it a slow waltz ?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BBSVK said:


> Is it a slow waltz ?


No. It's in duple, not triple, meter.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

So it seems that Hollywood is about to beat Vienna, albeit a Vienna created in London. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that the majority of people voting are American. I have often noticed a difference in taste between the two sides of the pond. Not a criticism. Merely an observation.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that the majority of people voting are American.


I don’t think you’re right. Though I live in the U.S., and am an American citizen, I was not born here, or lived here all my life and there are many voting non-Americans on the forum, though some are undeclared.


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## BalalaikaBoy (Sep 25, 2014)

To my ears, Schwarzkopf tends to sound a touch artificial and overly "appropriate". Steber sounds like "a natural human voice, but the best version of a natural human voice".


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Maybe the reason I like Schwarzkopf so much is that her version sounds more authentic to my ears. She sings in the original German and, as far as I’m aware, she sings to the original accompaniment. The Steber version is in English and the orchestral arrangement reminds me more of some of those Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s, American schmaltz rather than Viennese schmaltz, if you like. As always, Steber sings beautifully, but I don’t get any flavour of Viennese operetta. Schwarzkopf’s conductor helps here too. Lovro von Matačić was a Croatian who worked extensively in Europe and especially Vienna after the war.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Maybe the reason I like Schwarzkopf so much is that her version sounds more authentic to my ears. She sings in the original German and, as far as I’m aware, she sings to the original accompaniment. The Steber version is in English and the orchestral arrangement reminds me more of some of those Hollywood movies of the 1930s and 1940s, American schmaltz rather than Viennese schmaltz, if you like. As always, Steber sings beautifully, but I don’t get any flavour of Viennese operetta. Schwarzkopf’s conductor helps here too. Lovro von Matačić was a Croatian who worked extensively in Europe and especially Vienna after the war.


I find that Austro-Hungarian operetta style doesn't come naturally to singers who didn't grow up with it, just as non-Viennese musicians have difficulty capturing the authentic lilt of the Viennese waltz. Most modern recordings of Strauss, Lehar and Kalman operettas (to name the most widely known composers) don't "get it." Schwarzkopf got it.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I find that Austro-Hungarian operetta style doesn't come naturally to singers who didn't grow up with it, just as non-Viennese musicians have difficulty capturing the authentic lilt of the Viennese waltz. Most modern recordings of Strauss, Lehar and Kalman operettas (to name the most widely known composers) don't "get it." Schwarzkopf got it.


In an interview with Melvyn Bragg, I remember Schwarzkopf talking about how she and her conductors worked to create the Viennese style and how she listened to recordings of Fritz Kreisler in an attempt to vocally emulate his _gemütlich _style of playing.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tsaraslondon said:


> In an interview with Melvyn Bragg, I remember Schwarzkopf talking about how she and her conductors worked to create the Viennese style and how she listened to recordings of Fritz Kreisler in an attempt to vocally emulate his _gemütlich _style of playing.


It doesn't surprise me in the least.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

I would never have thought it is so tricky, for a Viennese opereta to sound like Viennese opereta. I think I have heard it in that style on the radio since forever.

Edit: or is Viennese the correct word ? Wikipedia calls Lehár an "Austro- Hungarian" composer. He was born at the place which belongs to Slovakia today, but is at Hungarian border. Today's Komárno was the same city, together with today's Komárom. Many people in Komárno still prefer Hungarian language.

Edit 2: Yep, wikipedia calls him the composer of Viennese opereta. The same for Kálmán, whom I would consider Hungarian, too. But the librettos were in German.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

BBSVK said:


> I would never have thought it is so tricky, for a Viennese opereta to sound like Viennese opereta. I think I have heard it in that style on the radio since forever.
> 
> Edit: or is Viennese the correct word ? Wikipedia calls Lehár an "Austro- Hungarian" composer. He was born at the place which belongs to Slovakia today, but is at Hungarian border. Today's Komárno was the same city, together with today's Komárom. Many people in Komárno still prefer Hungarian language.
> 
> Edit 2: Yep, wikipedia calls him the composer of Viennese opereta. The same for Kálmán, whom I would consider Hungarian, too. But the librettos were in German.


Perhaps @Woodduck's phrase Austro-Hungarian operetta is more correct.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> In an interview with Melvyn Bragg, I remember Schwarzkopf talking about how she and her conductors worked to create the Viennese style and how she listened to recordings of Fritz Kreisler in an attempt to vocally emulate his _gemütlich _style of playing.


Walter Legge has stories about how his wife (Schwarzkopf) listened to other singers often and how she “filched” certain things from other artists and endeavored to use those in her own singing.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

MAS said:


> Walter Legge has stories about how his wife (Schwarzkopf) listened to other singers often and how she “filched” certain things from other artists and endeavored to use those in her own singing.


All intelligent singers are influenced by other artists. Schwarzkopf, in her interviews, would often talk about the singers she admired and learned from. I don't see anything wrong in that but your use of the word "filched" implies that you do. However I don't think Schwarzkopf ever sounds like anything but herself. She is surely one of the most individual singers of her generation, which is possibly why she excites such strong feelings in people one way or the other.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> All intelligent singers are influenced by other artists. Schwarzkopf, in her interviews, would often talk about the singers she admired and learned from. I don't see anything wrong in that but your use of the word "filched" implies that you do. However I don't think Schwarzkopf ever sounds like anything but herself. She is surely one of the most individual singers of her generation, which is possibly why she excites such strong feelings in people one way or the other.


The word is Legge’s, not mine.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

MAS said:


> The word is Legge’s, not mine.


Do you have the citation? I doubt he intended it as a criticism, whereas I get the feeling that you do.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Do you have the citation? I doubt he intended it as a criticism, whereas I get the feeling that you do.


You‘re ascribing my motivations now? Your feelings are incorrect; I intended no criticism, but why you feel you have to “defend“ your favorites constantly is a mystery. You have her book on Legge, I’m sure you can look it up.


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## Tsaraslondon (Nov 7, 2013)

MAS said:


> You‘re ascribing my motivations now? Your feelings are incorrect; I intended no criticism, but why you feel you have to “defend“ your favorites constantly is a mystery. You have her book on Legge, I’m sure you can look it up.


I have just skimmed through the chapter on Schwarzkopf in Legge's memoir, _On and Off the Record_ and I have not come across the word "filched", though he does talk about how he introduced her to all sorts of artists (singers and instrumentalists) through recordings, as she had never owned a record player before she met him. I'll let Legge's words speak for me.



> First I set out to widen by reorded examples her imaginative concept of the possibilites of vocal sund. Rosa Ponselle's vintage port and thick cream timbre and noble line; the Slavic brilliance of Nina Koshetz; a few phrases from Farrar's Carmen, whose insinuations were later reflected in in Schwarzkopf's _Im chambre séparée_; one word only from Melba, _Bada _in _Donde lieta_; some Rethberg and large doses of Meta Seinemeyer to show how essentially Teutonic voices can produce brilliant Italianate sound. Then Lehmann's all-embracing generosity, Schumann's charm and lightness, McCormak's incredible octave leap in _Care selve_, Frida Leider's dramatic tension - all these were nectar and ambrosia for Shwarzkopf's musical apettite. Instrumentalists, too: Fritz Kreisler for the dark beauty of his tone, his nobility and elegance, his vitality in upbeats, his rubato and cavalier nonchalance; Schnabel for concentrated thinking over long musical periods, firmly rhythmical, seemingly oblivious to bar lines. From the analysis of what we found most admirable in these diverse models we made our own synthesis, most adaptable to what we believed would best develop her voice for the repertory we were to concentrate on.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

I’m familiar with his words, but it may not have been on his chapter on Schwarzkopf, but in the “autobiography” section, possibly his letters. My memory is good on what I’ve read over the years, but unfortunately not where I’ve read them.


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## Seattleoperafan (Mar 24, 2013)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Perhaps @Woodduck's phrase Austro-Hungarian operetta is more correct.


I believe they were the same country for a very long time.


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## MAS (Apr 15, 2015)

Seattleoperafan said:


> I believe they were the same country for a very long time.


As the many films on “Sissi” prove. Lol.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Schwarzkopf!

(And I don't need to say why as the others will have already said everything I think.)

N.


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## The Conte (May 31, 2015)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Sometimes I think people look for the "mannerisms" and "artificiality" in Schwarzkopf's singing. I don't so I don't hear them, as I do sometimes in the singing of, for instance, Renée Fleming. In any case one person's mannerisms are another's idiosyncracies. What I do hear is a wonderfully subtle and nuanced performance which perhaps brings out more in the music than most suspect is there. To be honest, I've heard _Vilja _so often, sung well, sung badly and sung just well enough, that it usually bores me to tears. Schwarzkopf's version is the only one I've heard that makes me sit up and listen.


Not only is Schwarzkopf at _her _most natural here (there's no artificiality here), this is some of the most natural classical singing on disc.

I rate the Gardiner recording more highly than you do, but I completely agree with you about the Matacic recording.

N.


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## damianjb1 (Jan 1, 2016)

Tsaraslondon said:


> Sometimes I think people look for the "mannerisms" and "artificiality" in Schwarzkopf's singing. I don't so I don't hear them, as I do sometimes in the singing of, for instance, Renée Fleming. In any case one person's mannerisms are another's idiosyncracies. What I do hear is a wonderfully subtle and nuanced performance which perhaps brings out more in the music than most suspect is there. To be honest, I've heard _Vilja _so often, sung well, sung badly and sung just well enough, that it usually bores me to tears. Schwarzkopf's version is the only one I've heard that makes me sit up and listen.


I'm probably one of those people who look for mannerisms in Schwarzkopf's singing. I'm not a huge admirer of hers but in this case her singing is sublime. Absolutely gorgeous. 
For me though, Steber is just a little more sublime so she got my vote.


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