Richard Tauber (16 May 1891 – 8 January 1948) was an Austrian lyric tenor and film actor. He performed the tenor role in numerous operas, including Don Giovanni by Mozart and Lorenzo Da Ponte.

Early life

Richard Tauber was born in Linz, Austria, to Elisabeth Seifferth (née Denemy), a widow and actress who performed soubrette roles at the local theater, and Richard Anton Tauber, an actor. His parents were not married, and his father was reportedly unaware of his birth as he was touring North America at the time. The child was named Richard Denemy. He was sometimes known as [Carl] Richard Tauber and also used his mother's married name, Seiffert; however, the claim by the Encyclopædia Britannica that he was ever known as Ernst Seiffert is not supported by any of the 12 published books and monographs about him listed in Daniel O'Hara's comprehensive Richard Tauber Chronology. After being adopted by his father in 1913, his legal name became Richard Denemy-Tauber. but had converted to Roman Catholicism, hoped his son would become a priest. However, the boy missed the excitement of the theater and instead joined his father in Prague and later, in 1903, at the theater in Wiesbaden.

Although Tauber aspired to become a singer, he failed to impress the teachers he auditioned for, likely because he chose to sing Wagner, a repertoire unsuited to his voice. His father enrolled him at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt to study piano, composition, and conducting. Tauber made rapid progress in his studies but remained determined to pursue a career as a singer.

Early career

After an intensive period of vocal training under Carl Beines, Tauber made his public debut at a concert in Freiburg on 17 May 1912. That same year, his father was appointed Intendant of the Municipal Theater in Chemnitz, which allowed him to arrange Tauber's debut as Tamino in The Magic Flute on 2 March 1913. A few weeks later, on 16 April, Tauber performed the role of Max in Der Freischütz. This performance was attended by of the Dresden Opera, who had already offered Tauber a five-year contract starting on 1 August. The Count encouraged Tauber to take small roles with other companies to broaden his experience.

During his tenure in Dresden, Tauber earned a reputation as an exceptionally quick learner. He mastered Gounod's Faust in 48 hours and learned Bacchus in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos overnight, astonishing Strauss, who conducted the performance in Berlin. This earned him the nickname "the SOS Tenor." In 1926, he rescued the German premiere of Puccini's Turandot at the Staatsoper Dresden by learning the role of Calaf in three days after tenor Curt Taucher fell ill.

After guest appearances at the Wiener Volksoper in 1920, Tauber made his Vienna State Opera debut on 16 June in La bohème, stepping in for an indisposed Alfred Piccaver. In 1922, he signed a five-year contract with the Vienna State Opera and subsequently performed with the Berlin State Opera. For many years, he divided his time between these two companies, spending four months with each, while reserving the remaining months for concerts, guest appearances with other companies, and international tours.

Tauber sang tenor roles in numerous operas, including Don Giovanni, The Bartered Bride, Tosca, Mignon, Faust, Carmen, and Die Fledermaus. He also appeared in modern works such as Erich Korngold's Die tote Stadt and Wilhelm Kienzl's Der Evangelimann. According to Daniel O'Hara's Tauber Chronology, he performed over 100 roles in opera and operetta. Although some critics looked down on his venture into operetta, it proved beneficial for Tauber, helping him gain a new audience and revitalizing Lehár's career as a composer of operetta. In the years that followed, Lehár composed several operettas with roles written specifically for Richard Tauber, including Paganini (1925, although Tauber was unavailable for the Vienna premiere and first performed it in Berlin in 1926), Der Zarewitsch (1927), Friederike (1928), The Land of Smiles (1929), which featured the famous aria "Dein ist mein ganzes Herz", Schön ist die Welt (1930), and Giuditta (1934). Germany had banned recordings of his music in 1937.

Despite receiving lucrative offers from the United States, he remained in the UK throughout the war. With little opera staged in wartime Britain, he earned a living by singing, conducting, and making gramophone records and radio broadcasts. He even composed English operettas with lyricist Fred S. Tysh. From one of these, Old Chelsea, the song "My Heart and I" became one of his most popular English recordings. It was only these English records that generated royalties for him; for his earlier recordings, he had been paid per performance and had been forced to leave his savings behind in Austria. By this time, he was so crippled by arthritis that he could no longer move in and out of the microphone for softer and louder notes. To address this, a small trolley was constructed on rubber wheels, allowing engineers to silently roll him back and forth while recording.

In 1946, Tauber appeared in a Broadway adaptation of The Land of Smiles (Yours is my Heart), which flopped, leaving him with huge personal losses and in debt to the backers. He was thus forced to tour the United States, Canada, Central, and South America for six months to recoup the losses, with Arpad Sandor and George Schick serving as his accompanists, and Neil Chotem as an assisting artist. In April 1947, Tauber returned to London and sought medical attention for a persistent cough. He was eventually diagnosed with lung cancer: one lung was already useless, and the other nearly so. Among the electrical recordings are albums of German folksongs, 12 songs from Schubert's Winterreise, accompanied by Mischa Spoliansky, and an album of folksongs by Franz Gabriel and Hermann Löns. Perhaps most prized are the four Mozart arias recorded in 1938 and 1939, and the aria from Der Freischütz made in 1946. Among his final recordings are two songs by Richard Strauss, accompanied at the piano by Percy Kahn. During his lifetime, his numerous recordings of music by Franz Lehár, much of which was composed specifically for him, and his own songs from the operetta Old Chelsea (1942) were bestsellers, alongside a vast array of lighter and popular music in both German and English. A number of his broadcasts have been preserved, including a series of General Motors Concerts from America in 1937, a Radio Hilversum concert from 1939, and excerpts from his three series of weekly programs for the BBC (1945–47).

Selected filmography

  • Reise-Abenteuer (1925) [short silent]
  • Achtung! Aufnahme! (1927) [short silent]
  • I Kiss Your Hand, Madame (1929)
  • Never Trust a Woman (1930, Ich glaub' nie mehr an eine Frau)
  • End of the Rainbow (1930, Das lockende Ziel)
  • The Land of Smiles (1930)
  • The Big Attraction (1931, Die große Attraktion)
  • Melody of Love (1932, Melodie der Liebe)
  • Blossom Time (1934)
  • Heart's Desire (1935)
  • Land Without Music (1936)
  • Pagliacci (1936)
  • Waltz Time (1945)
  • Lisbon Story (1946)

References

  • Das Richard Tauber Archiv This site also hosts a regularly updated chronology in English by Daniel O'Hara.
  • Greatest Singer?
  • Richard Tauber: A Brief Appreciation
  • Richard Tauber in Australia
  • Photographs of Richard Tauber
  • "History of the Tenor": Richard Tauber, sound clips and narration, Sydney R. Barker