129118 SCHUMANN-HEINK THE LAST OF THE TITANS BY MARY LAWTON New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 193J COPYRIGHT, 1926, 1927, BY INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE COMPANY, INC. COPYRIGHT, igjS, By MARY LAXVTON. Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 19,28. New Edition, October. 1929. Reissued May, i<M5- Printed in tJtf United States flf Amfrteo fry J. J. I.ITTI.R AND IVFS OMI\NV, NKW V"KK TO WILLIAM F. BIGELOW, ESQ., WITH APPRECIATION OF HIS UNFAILING COURTESY AND FRIENDSHIP LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Mmc. Schumann -Heink frontispiece FACE Schumaiin-Hcink's Mother and Father 6 . Schumann-Heink and her Mother . 8 The Rope-Maker's House where Schumann-Heink lived when a little girl 10 Schumann-Heink when a child 15 Marietta von Lcclair, first singing teacher of Schumann- Heink 23 Schumann-Heink with her brother and two sisters ... 26 Schumann-Heink at seventeen 30 Schumann-Heink as a young woman 34 Schumann-Heink 43 As Azucena in II Trovatore, Schumann-Heink's first role in opera at Dresden in 1878 51 Karl Krebs 58 Schumann-Heink as Azucena in II Trovatore . 63 Schumann-Heink in one of her early roles in Hamburg . 69 Schumann-Heink as a young woman . 74 Hans von Biilow, great conductor and pianist . 78 Schumann-Heink and Pol Plangon, the great French bari- tone 82 Schumann-Heink in Hamburg days 87 Schumann-Heink as Carmen in Hamburg 94 Schumann-Heink in the opera, "Die Fledermaus" ... 97 Schumann-Heink as Fides in Le Prophete 99 Schumann-Heink as Jehan dc Saintre 103 Die Wilde Toni. Schumann-Heink, Hallenstein, Schumann 109 [vii] LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Paul Schumann, Schumann-Heink's second husband 119 Maurice Grau, manager of the Metropolitan Opera Com- pany in the nineties . ... .137 Schumann-Heink as Ortrud in Lohengrin 141 Schumann-Heink as Ortrud in Lohengrin . 143 Mina, the faithful maid, with George Washington Schu- mann right after his birth . 149 Schumann-Heink as Waltraute in Gotterdammerung, one of her greatest roles . 173 Lilli Lehmann, great German opera singer . 178 Schumann-Heink in Bayreuth . 181 Schumann-Heink as Telemachos in Odysseus , 185 Schumann-Heink in light opera in New York, Love's Lottery . ... 197 Schumann-Heink's Children. Left to right: Walter, Henry, Charlotte, August, Hans (seated) . 202 Lillian Nordica . 215 Katharina Klafsky as Briinnhilde .... facing 224 Amalie Materna 231 Marie Wilt 233 Edouard de Reszke as Mephistopheles in Faust . 239 Jean de Reszke as Tristan in Tristan and Isolde . 241 Schumann-Heink as Erda in Siegfried 254 Cosima Wagner 261 Marcella Sembrich in The Daughter of the Regiment 292 Caruso in Rigoletto . .... 296 Enrico Caruso as Canio in Pagliacci . 298 Schumann-Heink as witch in Hansel and Gretcl . 303 Schumann-Heink in Die Mcistcrsinger . 313 Schumann-Heink as Magdalena in Die Mcistcrsingcr . 315 Erda in Das Rheingold 317 Hans Richter 319 Richard Strauss 323 [ Viii ] LJST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACE Schumann-Heink as Mary in Flying Dutchman . 328 Johannes Brahms 355 Gustav Mahler .. 359 Richard Wagner .... 364 Richard Wagner-Festspielhaus in Bayreuth . .369 Wagner's grave at Villa Wahnfried, Bayreuth .... 372 Anton Rubinstein 379 PARTI Schumann-Heink THE LAST OF THE TITANS I AM a soldier's daughter. I was born, you know, the child of an Austrian army officer. My father was a lieutenant at that time. My mother was raised (and I, too, as is usual in the family of Austrian officers) in an Italian convent. She was most highly educated, my mother, and the education she then had no longer exists. Why, she spoke beautifully Italian, French, German, Dutch and even Latin and had the most wonderful con- tralto voice you can imagine. You see, she was raised in Italy, and in Italy they all sing. They sing every- where (all those operatic arias) in the streets as they go. It is a funny thing, but every Italian has a voice and sings naturally, and my mother was one of those. Mother married my father in Italy. In this time a great part of Italy was ours, Austrian. My father was the finest kind of a man a perfect gentleman, but well I must admit it, a real old rough-neck soldier just the same! A good, good man he was but a rough-neck! God bless him! He got at the first some [ 3 1 SCHUMANN-HEINK little education, then studied later by himself. He ran away from home when he was fifteen, in 1848, the time of the Revolution. He volunteered and from then on followed a military career worked up from a private to an officer. His father before him had been a military man and had eleven sons, and when they were only six years old they were all put in the military academy to make soldiers of them. So, like the others, my father started when he was six and ran away when he was fifteen. But in some way he got a really good education, later on being able to pass his examinations into the cavalry, and he was until the end a cavalry officer. Eventually he passed the examination to be a Major one of the most exact- ing tests. He, too, had to speak all the languages of the different states. I was born on the 15th of June, 1861, in Lieben, Prague. My mother's name was Charlotte Goldman; my father's name was Hans Hans Roesslen When I was three years old, I already sang. I sang what my mother sang. I never was in a theater until I was fourteen, but I acted just the same. Fd put my mother's apron around me and start to act and sing singing all the different arias and danc- ing always dancing. But from three years on, I sang. Then my father was transferred to Verona. [ 4 1 SCHUMANN-HEINK Among my first memories is Verona. We lived all together with the soldiers in the officers' quarters in the barracks, and as I hadn't any playmates, I spent time in most of my the stalls with the horses, playing right under their heels, but of course none of them hurt me, for animals rarely hurt children. I always had such a love for animals, even then. We came away from Italy in 1866. I was the only child in the family at that time. We came back to Austria because war broke out between Italy and Austria, so Mother and I were sent back to Prague, and there I saw my grandmother for the first time. She was so happy to see my mother and me! She was from Hungary, my grandmother, and her name was Leah Kohn. She was the sweetest, loveliest little thing you can imagine. I recall just how she looked. She was very small and very graceful and very gay. She died when she was only fifty-two, and my mother told me she had not one white hair even then. Now, I was one of those children that noticed everything "smart," you say in America. I remem- ber soon after we arrived, I looked at my grandmother and said, "Oh, Grandmother, how is it that they call you Grossmntter (grandmother) when you are so little so tiny?" Because she was not tall, and I thought gross (grand) meant tall, so I said to her, [ * ] SCHUMANN-HEINK "How is it you are so small, when they all call you Grossmutter!" (You see, she was not much bigger than I was then.) How she looked at me, so when I said that! And she laughed and said, feeling the bumps all round my head with her little old hands: "Isn't she clever to think of that? She has a brain, this child." Then she took me up in her arms and looked deep in my eyes, and said to Mother: "And now I tell you something more. This child has a genius she will be an actress or a singer something great. You will see. The world will yet speak of this child of yours." "What?" said my mother. "The child of a poor army officer? How do you know?" And Grandmother answered, "Well, I don't know bow I know, but I feel sure there is something in this little head something in this child that the world will recognize." When I heard that, I was "tickled to death," as you say here, and right away I began to dance, and said, "Oh, shall I dance for you the Czardas, Grand- mother?" "What! And can you dance the Czardas that wonderful dance?" (The Czardas, you know, is the national Hungarian dance.) "Oh, Ja, Ja! I can dance the Czardas." r 7 ] I fc IS I D- B o CO SCHUMANN-HEINK "How is it you are so small, when they all call you Grossmutter!" (You see, she was not much bigger than I was then.) How she looked at me, so when I said that! And she laughed and said, feeling the bumps all round my head with her little old hands: "Isn't she clever to think of that? She has a brain, this child." Then she took me up in her arms and looked deep in my eyes, and said to Mother: "And now I tell you something more. This child has a genius she will be an actress or a singer something great. You will see. The world will yet speak of this child of yours." "What?" said my mother. "The child of a poor army officer? How do you know?" And Grandmother answered, "Well, I don't know how I know, but I feel sure there is something in this little head something in this child that the world will recognize." When I heard that, I was "tickled to death," as you say here, and right away I began to dance, and said, "Oh, shall I dance for you the Czardas, Grand- mother?" "What! And can you dance the Czardas that wonderful dance?" (The Czardas, you know, is the national Hungarian dance.) "Oh, Ja, Ja! I can dance the Czardas." \,7 ] SCHUMANN-HE1NK AND HER MOTHER SCHUMANN-HEINK "But," said my grandmother, "you have no music, my child!" "Oh, that is nothing," I told her.