Tauber Chronology – Last Revised: May 2021
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Richard Tauber (1891-1948) An illustrated Chronology Updated, with new features and expanded Picture Gallery Daniel O’Hara With a Foreword and Afterword by Dr. Nicky Losseff and Marco Rosenkranz May 2021 Saltburn-by-the-Sea Daniel O’Hara – Richard Tauber Chronology – Last revised: May 2021 Dedication Dedicated to the memory of Richard Tauber Born: Linz, 16 May 1891. Died: London, 8 January 1948, and of John Marsom [1940-2018], my loving partner for over 46 years. Warning: Earlier versions of this work have been archived and pirated by other websites. The most recent update will always be the one found here: http://www.richard-tauber.de/ What’s New in this Edition? A new feature, I thought it might be helpful briefly to mention at the beginning entries that are new – or significantly changed - in this edition, so readers already familiar with the previous edition(s) can go straight to the relevant pages. ● The UK tour in April 1937 began in Dublin: new dates/venues/details have been added. Additional details of his visits to Ireland in April 1935 and Jan 1945 have also been confirmed. ● A new work has been added to the list of RT’s stage appearances. Morgen wider Lustik!, an operetta by Heinz Lewin (1888-1942), a boyhood friend of Tauber’s in Wiesbaden, who perished in the Holocaust, was performed at the Theater des Westens in Berlin in 1921/2. I thank Heinz Lewin’s granddaughter, Yvonne Mocatta, for this information. ● New photographs have been added, including two of Tauber’s grave, one attended by the youthful author, taken in March 1978. ●There are also a number of other corrections, minor alterations and clarifications, including a few late cast changes for Carmen on 11 Feb 1928 since a Playbill has turned up. ● Further research into his family background has revealed information and career details for his half-sisters, Mizzi and Lulu Seiffert. My thanks go to Peter Clausen for all his work on this. Appeals for information ● Danny Sharples tells me he once had a programme for an appearance by RT in the Isle of Man. He cannot remember whether it was a concert or stage production, possibly Old Chelsea. If any reader has access to Manx newspaper archives, do please check for published notices. ● Precise dates of some of RT’s Caribbean tour appearances in early 1947 are uncertain, particularly those in Colombia and the Dutch Antilles. He certainly sang in Aruba, and there is film of him in Curaçao, though it is not known if he sang there. Any new information welcome. ● The liner note in Ward Marston’s recent Lotte Schöne Edition says she sang Michaela (in Carmen) to Tauber’s Don Jose in Budapest. A date and details for this would be welcome. 2 Daniel O’Hara – Richard Tauber Chronology – Last revised: May 2021 AUTHOR’S PREFACE I first became enthralled by the voice and artistry of Richard Tauber in my mid-teens through a 1955 BBC television showing of his 1936 film Land without Music. I soon began to collect his records and compile a discography, though my only sources then were Clough & Cummings’ World Encyclopaedia of Recorded Music (WERM) and old Parlophone Catalogues. In 1958 I became the youngest member of the recently-formed Richard Tauber Society, founded by Terry Griffin, through which I got to meet and corresponded with Tauber’s accompanist Percy Kahn and his widow Diana Napier, who served respectively as Society President and Vice-President. Early work on this Chronology began several decades ago in a series of notebooks. The information they contained was gradually transferred to a computer file, starting in 2007. This was added to and modified over the following years until a draft - still fairly sketchy - was considered extensive enough to post online in June 2011. A first print edition was published in April 2012, and reviewed very favourably by Alan Bilgora in The Record Collector, Volume 57/2, page 163 (June 2012). New Editions were printed in March 2013 and September 2016. Retirement provided the leisure, and the internet access to a growing body of information, which steadily advanced the project and brought it to its present form. As new material continued to emerge, it was incorporated (with more clarifications and corrections) in a series of on-line updates. Advancing age, reduced mobility and failing eyesight now make it difficult for me to continue working on it, but I shall try to do so for as long as I am able. Though there are still puzzles to be solved and gaps to be filled, and some errors may remain, subsequent revisions expanded and improved upon earlier versions. During 2017, I acquired a 20-minute reel of Tauber’s cine-film from his 1946 spring tour. It includes footage shot in Bournemouth, Torquay, Plymouth, and on Dartmoor, between March and June. Among those to be seen are Esther Moncrieff, her father and stepmother (at their home in Poole), Percy Kahn, Alexa Weir and Irene Ambrus. I had the film professionally digitized: it has since been posted online by Chris Goddard: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTeC31ZJPhw. In autumn 2017 we were able to re-visit all locations in the Plymouth area and on Dartmoor to be seen in the film. Late in 2017 a 1931 US broadcast w. Konrad Neuger and Fritz Reiner resurfaced (♫). In this he talks briefly with Reiner, sings two Grieg songs with orchestra (the first is missing), plus Tosti’s Pour un baiser and Irving Berlin’s Heimweh (Always) with Neuger at the piano. Tauber told a Coventry audience during a 1940 air-raid: ‘Hitler has stopped me singing in Germany and Austria; he won’t stop me here!’ I have continued to correlate his wartime activities with the incidence of raids on the cities he was visiting, so readers can more easily mark his brave determination to keep that promise. There has been a growing awareness of his generous, unstinting contribution to many charities, and of his courage and stamina in bringing music to millions throughout the country during those war-torn years. For example, in just one month (March 1941) he appeared in 12 cities, singing in 26 performances of the Land of Smiles [in Leeds, Reading and Nottingham] and conducting ten symphony concerts [in Liverpool, London, Wolverhampton, Cheltenham (twice), Worcester, Malvern, Bath, Stockport and Blackpool]. Few artists did more to ‘keep the home fires burning’ in those dark days. In February 2019, my collection of Tauber memorabilia was gifted to the Republic of Austria. The 400+ original shellac recordings (including three unpublished takes) are now housed in the Österreichische Mediathek and the other items [slides, manuscripts, letters, scores, photographs, programmes etc] are held by the Österreichischen Nationalbibliothek [National Library] in Vienna, where in due course they will be available to researchers. Comments, corrections, suggestions and any relevant information may be addressed via the website, as should enquiries or details concerning unpublished recordings and surviving broadcasts. I thank all those who have contributed to and expressed gratitude for my work. D.O’H 3 Daniel O’Hara – Richard Tauber Chronology – Last revised: May 2021 TABLE OF CONTENTS Frontispiece: Tauber as Tamino, Dresden 1913 5 Abbreviations and Symbols used in this work 6 Sources and Acknowledgements 7 Foreword by Dr. Nicky Losseff 8 The Richard Tauber Chronology: 1891 – 1948 9 Section 1: 1891-1918 – Early Years/First Dresden Contract 9 Section 2: 1918-1922 – Second Dresden Contract 14 Section 3: 1922-1924 – Fame in Vienna 18 Section 4: 1924-1926 – Conquering Berlin 21 Section 5: 1926-1931 – King of Operetta 24 Section 6: 1931-1933 – Toast of London and New York 30 Section 7: 1933-1938 – After leaving Germany 33 Section 8: 1938-1940 – After leaving Austria 44 Section 9: 1940-1945 – Life in Wartime Britain 48 Section 10: 1945-1948 – Final Chapter 57 End notes: Brompton Cemetery, Ask your Heart, “Baby Blitz” 63 Appendix 1 – Richard Tauber’s Stage Roles 64 Appendix 2 – Richard Tauber’s Artistic Ancestry 66 Appendix 3 – The BBC Richard Tauber Programmes, 1945-47 72 Appendix 4 – The Vézelay Portrait 73 Appendix 5 – The June 1929 Berlin Recording Sessions 74 Select Bibliography 75 Richard Tauber, a brief summary 76 Tributes and Epilogue 77 Afterword by Marco Rosenkranz 78 Picture Gallery 79 Note: Many early (and even some more recent) reference works claim Tauber was born ‘Ernst Seiffert’. As we will show, he was baptised as ‘Richard Denemy’. There is evidence he was known as a child by the first names ‘Carl’ and ‘Richard’, and the family names ‘Denemy’, ‘Seiffert’ and ‘Tauber’. But pace the Encyclopaedia Britannica, neither I nor any others cited here found evidence he was ever called ‘Ernst’. [NB: During the 1920s, Ernst Tauber, an unrelated baritone, was a member of the Wiener Volksoper.] Matrix Numbers: Mx(s) = Matrix No(s): unique number(s) identifying recording(s) often followed by take number(s): xxB/Be = 12”/10” German Odeon; CXE/CE = 12”/10” English Parlophone; Ki = 10” French Odeon; Ve = 10” Austrian Odeon; xxQu/Qu = 12”/10” Special order German Odeon; OEA = 10” English HMV; CAX/CA = 12”/10” English Columbia. [Private and test recordings may not follow these protocols.] 4 Daniel O’Hara – Richard Tauber Chronology – Last revised: May 2021 Richard Tauber as Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte Dresden, September 1913 (From one of his own glass slides, part of the author’s collection.) 5 Daniel O’Hara – Richard Tauber Chronology – Last revised: May 2021 ABBREVIATIONS USED IN THIS WORK [RT = Richard Tauber, 1891-1948] ABC Australian Broadcasting Commission AEF Allied Expeditionary Force [BBC wartime forces broadcasting network] ARS Abbey Road Studios, St.