LL with Colleagues
Many LL Students in a Photo
Schwarzkopf on LL’s Marschallin
An excerpt from the New York Times of 11 December 1960
ONE person who is glad she never saw Lotte Lehmann sing the Marschallin in “Der Rosenkavalier” is Elisabeth Schwarzkopf. The latter hastened to explain why she felt this way about one of the great interpretations of this century.
“Mme. Lehmann’s performance was so overwhelming,” Miss Schwarzkopf said, “that it dominated the thinking of anyone who saw it. Last fall, when I was singing with the San Francisco Opera, I visited Mme. Lehmann and talked to her about the role of the Marschallin. Many things she said will help me to deepen my present characterization.
“But it would be wrong for me to pattern my Marschallin after Mme, Lehmann’s, if only because my voice is much different from hers. It is higher and lighter and not so rich and solid in the middle register.”
TIME magazine: 27 January 1946
“Dowager of Song”
The applause went on for two minutes when she came on stage; the house was full, and 100 extra people crowded onto the stage, which was decked with enough floral tributes to do justice to a gangster’s funeral. But tall, ample Lotte Lehmann, one of the greatest sopranos of her fading day, making her 18th annual appearance at Manhattan’s Town Hall, still nervously clutched a handkerchief as she sang Schubert’s Müllerin song cycle. Said she, afterwards: “The first concert in New York is always difficult. The heart goes like that! It is like having again a difficult examination.”
She is now 57—and is annoyed when newspapers, as they often do, call her 60. She has a Perleberg birth certificate dated February 27, 1888, and after producing it last week, added: “It has cost me so many tears, you have no idea. I should wear my birth certificate on a chain around my neck!” She is bubbling with health, and looks somewhat like a motherly Hausfrau, which she isn’t. (“There’s not an atom of Hausfrau in me. It’s really dreadful.”)
In a hillside house overlooking the Pacific near Santa Barbara, Calif., Lotte Lehmann lives with a friend, Frances Holden (former New York University psychology assistant professor). Says she: “We swim every day in the Pacific, even at Christmas time. We are dreadfully busy. She translates my books. I paint. She makes carpenter work. We look like pigs running around.” Lehmann’s fourth book, More Than Singing, is in its second printing, and her paintings (landscapes, portraits, opera scenes) were displayed in a one-man show in November 1944. (“A man called up and wanted to buy one of the paintings. I was so overwhelmed I wanted to give it to him. My friend said, ‘Lotte, don’t be so unprofessional.’ He paid $50 for it, poor man!”)
Lotte Lehmann’s voice is still powerful and still lyric, but she does not dread the day when she loses it: “I will not miss it a bit,” says she, “of that I am quite sure. I like very much to show other sides. Oh, Gott, I have not only one!”
For the first time in twelve years she is not singing at the Metropolitan this winter—although in San Francisco she recently sang her greatest role, the Marschallin, in Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. She regrets that Strauss did not oppose Naziism more actively, but says: “Shall one expect that a great artist is also a great person? I know artists with lousy characters. It is strange that the gift is given sometimes to a shell that is not worthy of it, nicht?”
Unusual Photos
Colorized Lehmann
Here are three recently “improved” photos that include Lehmann. Sadly, the face has been altered to become a rather generic one as you can tell by comparing it to the b/w original.
Singing Style Research
The Substance of Style: How Singing Creates Meaning in the Music of Schubert, Donizetti, and Bellini is the work of Elise Plack for her 2012 thesis at Cornell University. The second chapter, called “The Sources of Style” analyzes the singing of art song by specialists of the early 20th century which includes many references to Lotte Lehmann, both as a writer and as a singer. That chapter is available on this website.
New Photos
Lotte Lehmann in a new Novel
The author is Heather Walrath and her novel, The Diva’s Daughter, is set in Munich in 1932 and by page 82 has mentioned Lehmann, in this case, teaching. There’s obviously much more to come in the next 300 pages, and I’ll report on that as I read. Now, having read the whole book, I can say that it’s a good read, especially for people interested in the Nazi era and classical vocal music. The story line is engrossing and the writing is excellent. The Lehmann references are accurate and though Lehmann is hardly the star of the novel, it’s interesting to see how the author has used her and her fame as reference and even turning points.
LL’s First Sieglinde
Here’s an English translation of a critic’s reaction to LL’s first appearance as Sieglinde in 1914 in Hamburg.
Five LL Paintings (Auction)
The Auktionshaus Bad Homburg is offering five of Lotte Lehmann’s paintings in the next auction sale on Saturday, 28 March 2026. The company may be reached at aubaho.de or auktionshaus-bad-homburg.de
Reviews from Vienna Newspapers
We have discovered some reviews from the 1930s that treat Lehmann very well!
“Lotte Lehmann gave a song recital with Bruno Walter. Much has been said in abundance regarding the vocal artistry, performance, inner discipline, and spiritual content of the presentations. However, Lotte Lehmann possesses qualities beyond that which seem to be unique—just as unique as the tear that trembled in Richard Mayr’s voice. With Lotte Lehmann, it is the interplay of spiritual shades, shifting from the cheerful to the pensive, from the pensive to the melancholy, and from the melancholy to the dramatic. Even in her cheerfulness, a tone vibrates that sounds a bit in a minor key. This soft minor tinting transitions into a Beethoven-esque drama. It is feminine, yet heroic drama. Somehow, Leonore is always there. The meditative and the impulsive are united in Lotte Lehmann with rare perfection. Thus, this voice once again became a great shaper [of art]. The program included Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Hugo Wolf and…”
“Events of world-class stature are overcrowded in Vienna even today. What Lotte Lehmann means as a lieder singer is understood here perhaps better than anywhere else, because we have followed the beginnings of such artistry, recognizing its growing maturity.
To truly grasp songs, as this woman does, requires—aside from all musical and vocal perfection,—a human greatness and, at the same time, a tenderness that can only be wrung from a life in the wide world, a life lived with the soul. That is why it is such a unique performance we are witnessing with Lotte Lehmann now—a performance that reveals all the wonders of (let us call it) romantic Germanness. [the critic is a Jew, so there’s no Deutschland über alles in his words]
Schumann, Brahms, Richard Strauss, poets from Heine to Dehmel: this is a spiritual province that, thanks to such a singer and interpreter, is now opening to the whole world, finding the most beautiful understanding everywhere. Let us not even begin to speak of Schubert, who gave his sounding voice to all of old Austria.
The course of the evening: ovations, repetitions, encores, and a farewell that was delayed again and again. It was never more beautiful. But half of such happiness came from Bruno Walter. In his piano playing, the ideal of the German Lied is reflected: symphonic texture around a melody (Symphonik um ein Melos).”
LL Film Planned
This recently discovered newspaper article from 1935 offers the “What IF?” question to the past.
Gerron to direct Lotte Lehmann film
Lotte Lehmann is now also set to star in a film. She will portray a great singer who must grapple with the conflict between her career and her private life. She tries to renounce her art to save her marriage and family happiness. However, she doesn’t quite succeed, and ultimately returns to her art. Kurt Gerron will direct the film. Negotiations with Ms. Lehmann are expected to be finalized in the coming days, with only financial details remaining to be settled. Filming is scheduled to begin in September. 1935
LL’s Students Obituaries
We have finally completed the page that offers obituaries of all of Lehmann’s Music Academy of the West students (the students we know of). Often you’ll find the student’s recorded memories of working with Lehmann. For some of the lesser known students we have included some recordings of their work.
Town Hall, Australia
1935 Review
John Amis on Lotte Lehmann
In 2021 John Amis put together a program of Lehmann’s singing called Lotte Lehmann: Vintage Years which can be found on YouTube.
LL at the New Met
We have a short (interrupted) interview with Mme Lehmann (preceded by the First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson).
La Scala?
• You can’t believe everything you read. This appeared in the Neue Freie Presse of 20 January 1924. In English: Tomorrow (Monday) Lotte Lehmann‘s single concert [we’d call it a recital] at 7pm. At the piano: Professor Ferdinand Foll. Miss Lehmann appears as Lieder singer before the Vienna public for the first time in several years. Her program contains songs of Brahms, Schumann, Cornelius, Marx, and Strauss. In this concert, Miss Lehmann takes leave of the Vienna public for a longer period of time, because only a few days later she travels to Italy for several months, where she first appears as a guest singer for two months at La Scala, Milan. Remaining tickets…..The recital information is correct, but Lehmann didn’t sing on those dates at Italy’s La Scala. Rather, in this case, she traveled to Berlin, first to record on 13 February and then to sing opera there with Georg Szell, among other conductors at the Berlin Staatsoper, where she remained, making records and singing opera until 21 May 1924 the date she sang her first Marschallin in London under Bruno Walter’s direction. She continued singing opera (Ariadne auf Naxos, Der Rosenkavalier and Die Walküre), not returning to Vienna until the next season when on 9 September 1924 she sang in Faust. As usual, many thanks to Peter Clausen for the clipping. P.S. Lehmann did eventually sing a recital at La Scala, but in 1935.