100 Greatest Singers: LOTTE LEHMANN

THIS PROJECT IS RESERVED ONLY FOR THE GREATEST! German soprano Lotte Lehmann in this? Please comment!

Lotte Lehmann, Soprano (1888-1976)

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy - Auf Flügeln des Gesanges
Song for voice and piano after a poem by Heinrich Heine
From "Book of songs"
Composed 1822-23
(Recorded 1927)

My personal opinion: "She owned the secret, the only secret we have: A pure heart. A sound from within her heart that goes direct to a listeners heart. It makes him happy".
Words about Lotte Lehmann from an admirer. Words from Leo Slezak.
It´s significant, critics rather wrote about the effects of Lotte Lehmanns singing than about her artistry. There was something magic in it. It was this intensive soulful tone only a very few possessed.
The picture of her shows us a beautiful woman, an image according to her exceptional voice. But it would be deficient to reduce the soprano only to beautiful sounds.
Lotte Lehmann was a performer of characters, a tragedian. She´d sung Wagner and italian heroines with same intensity as she did with Mozart. Walter Legge said, she never sang like a virginal maiden, what means, her singing expressed superior wisdom. When she performed the first Suor Angelica in vienna, Puccini wrote: "She´s indeed a german, but a fine and subtile artist easy and without affectations of a primadonna, with a voice sweet as honey".
Lehmann first came to Metropolitan Opera at age 46 singing Sieglinde with Lauritz Melchior. In 1951 she interrupted a recital in New Yorks Town Hall, annunciated it was her last performance. The audience wept.
Tears are all what´s left. We´re not having voices like hers anymore...

THE COMPLETE OVERVIEW: GO TO "ALL SINGERS IN THIS LIST"

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Lotte
• Lehmann
• Arturo
• Toscanini
• Giacomo
• Puccini
• Felix
• Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
• Richard
• Strauss
• Gustav
• Mahler

[bobzeschin]

Teuersten Freund Mike--What a wonderful photo of die junge Lehmann!!! It must be from her early days in Hamburg. What role is she portraying, and where on earth did you find it?

[100Singers]

This is a 1917 photograph of her singing Micaela (Carmen) in vienna, she was age 28 at the time. You´ll find it with Google pictures. I used an image processor to edit the pic.

Best wishes!

[bobzeschin]

Too many years ago, a charming woman named Mia guided a friend and I through the Atlanta Art Museum. Learning we loved opera, she told us proudly that Lehmann was her godmother! We later read in LL's memoirs about the young fan "Mia" in Hamburg who always found a way to slip a bouquet of lilies onto her dressing table. They became friends for decades, & LL wrote warmly about driving through endless Georgia cotton fields to visit her & "her pale, lovely, black-haired child--little Mia-Lotte."

[100Singers]

Many thanks for this enchanted story!

[LLehmannfan]

Meine Hoffnung, dass Lotte Lehmann auf der Liste stehen würde, ist nicht enttäuscht worden. Sie war eine großartige Künstlerin.

Meine liebste Sopranistin hier in einer ihrer stärksten Aufnahmen hören zu können, erfüllt mein Herz mit Freude.

Vielen Dank! 5 Sterne dafür.

[56468able]

for me lotte is most definitely the most divine of all.,the sexuality of her voice is unreal ,and her duets with lauritz melchior are just unbeatable .

rom someone who does not understand music ,but loves it to no end peter thank you

[mizofan]

I'm really enjoying exploring these 100 singers; being largely ignorant, so many new discoveries. This feels me with a marvellous sense of wellbeing- oh, i see that fits with what is written in the notes above. Yes, i wanted to say happy, and yet a little bit more besides.

[primavoce444]

If you have heard Tetrazzini and Lotte Lehmann you can die happy.

[ruffomaldito]

I had already chosen my personal favorite 10 singers from among the hundreds on Youtube, but after listening to Miss Lehmann, they all pale by comparison. I´ll have to re-train my ear and my open my heart.

[SugarTomAppleRoger]

Have to agree with this one. They just don't build em like this any more.

[pellmeli]

A most beautiful voice with great heart!