UCSB Special Collections: Collections: Exhibits
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Lotte Lehmann stands next to a concert poster
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Portraits and Portrayals:
Selected Photographs from the Lotte Lehmann
Collection.
October 8 - November
19, 2001.
The
life of a successful opera star is influenced not only by
the roles an individual masters, but also by the contacts he
or she makes within the profession. The initial steps toward
success as a vocalist were not easy for Lotte Lehmann, but
through perseverance, hard work and the variety of
associations she was to make throughout her life, Lotte was
able to create a very successful vocal career for herself.
Through the presentation of selected photographs and other
artifacts from the Lotte Lehmann Collection, this exhibit
will provide some insight into these roles and
relationships, both personal and professional, which were to
have such a profound impact on the life of the great
German-born soprano, Lotte Lehmann.
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Lotte as a paige in Tannhauser, 1910
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Lotte Lehmann was born Charlotte Sophie
Pauline Lehmann on February 27, 1888 in Perleberg, Germany.
In 1902, the Lehmanns moved to Berlin where Lotte enrolled
in the Ulrich Lyceum, at which she was to obtain her first
taste of acting. Upon graduation, Lotte was accepted at the
Royal High School of Music. Dissatisfied after one year,
Lotte auditioned and was accepted into the Elektra Gerster
School of Singing. The methods of this institution, however,
did not suit her vocal instincts and after a particularly
unpleasant experience attempting to sing the Countess's
second aria from The Marriage of Figaro, Lotte was dismissed
from the school. Soon after, Lotte's voice teacher at the
Gerster School wrote Lotte a letter in which she
stated:
I can only say that none of
my pupils has ever been such a disappointment as you
have, and this has given me many a dark hour. I believe
that, if you want to and have to achieve something in the
future, you should take up a practical career. . . . Frau
Gerster requests me to tell you that your progress is not
even that of a mediocre pupil. . . .
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Lotte as Tosca, 1923
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Lotte was devastated. She and her brother
Fritz searched through newspaper want ads for work and her
father enrolled her in a secretarial school. But Lotte had
not given up on her dream and decided to make one last
attempt by writing to Mathilde Mallinger, a teacher residing
in Berlin who had been Wagner's first Eva in Die
Meistersinger and had been an opera star both in Berlin and
Bayreuth. Lotte's father became angry and told her that she
was wasting the stamp. Why did she insist on believing that
all those experts had been wrong?
But this is where Lotte's luck
changed.
Not only did Mathilde Mallinger agree to
teach her, but Lotte's father managed to convince Baron
Konrad zu Putlitz to pay for her lessons until she was able
to obtain a professional appointment.
Lotte blossomed under Mallinger's
tutelage. In 1910 she signed her first contract with the
Hamburg Opera. Within a few years Lotte had progressed from
small roles as pages and bridesmaids to more substantial
portrayals. In 1916 Lotte left Hamburg to join the Vienna
Court Opera. There she was to meet Richard Strauss and a
variety of other musical personages who would have a
profound effect upon her life. As her career progressed,
Lotte performed at many of the world's major opera houses,
presented Lieder recitals and recorded many of the works in
her repertoire.
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Lotte as Sieglinde in Die Walkure, 1926
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After final concerts in 1951, Lotte
retired to an active teaching career until her death in
Santa Barbara, California on August 26, 1976.
Exhibit curated by Caitlin Hunter and Jace Turner.
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Rehearsing Fidelio with Arturo Toscanin
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Richard Strauss and Lotte
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