Lotte Lehmann.

Biography

Lotte Lehmann was born Charlotte Sophie Pauline Lehmann on February 27, 1888, in Perleberg, Germany. Lehmann's operatic career began in Hamburg in 1910 and she made her Vienna debut in 1916. Her best-known role in Europe was the title role in Fidelio; she became internationally famous for her portrayal of the Marschallin in Richard Strauss's Rosenkavalier (she sang all three of the major female roles in that opera, and worked closely with Strauss for a number of years). She made her American debut in Chicago in 1932. Lehmann left Europe to make her home in the U.S. in 1938, after the Anschluss; she lived first in New York and then in Santa Barbara. By 1937, Lehmann described herself as "a concert singer who sometimes sings opera"; she sang her last opera in 1946, but continued to give concerts until 1951. From 1951 until 1961, and occasionally after that, she taught master classes in interpretation at the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, in Pasadena, at Northwestern University, and at Wigmore Hall in London. In addition to a novel and two volumes of poems, she published two autobiographies, Midway in My Song (1938; Anfang und Aufsteig in Germany and Wings of Song in Great Britain) and My Many Lives (1948), and two books about interpretation, More Than Singing (1945; revised and published in 1971 as Eighteen Song Cycles) and Five Operas and Richard Strauss (1964; Singing with Richard Strauss in Great Britain).

In 1926, Lehmann married Otto Krause, an insurance executive with whom she had fallen in love four years earlier when his wealthy wife had engaged Lehmann to sing at his birthday party. Lehmann and Krause did not have children, but Krause and his first wife had had four. When their mother died in 1936, the youngest was 17 and the oldest was 21. In the spring of 1938, Lehmann succeeded in getting them out of Austria, and from then on helped to support them in the United States.

Krause died in January 1939 at Saranac Lake, where he had been at the famous sanitorium for over two years. During the time of Krause's stay at Saranac, Lehmann had two close companions, Viola Westervelt Douglas and Frances Holden. After Krause's death, Holden and Lehmann continued to live together in New York and Santa Barbara until Lehmann died in 1976.

The conductors, composers, and singers Lehmann worked with included Franz Schalk, Arturo Toscanini, Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwangler, Bruno Walter, Richard Strauss, Giacomo Puccini, Maria Jeritza, Richard Mayr, Alfred Piccaver, Lauritz Melchior, Elisabeth Schumann, and Richard Tauber. Among her pupils were Jeannine Altmeyer, Grace Bumbry, Kay Griffel, Marilyn Horne, and Benita Valente.

Chronological Biography

• 1888: February, born in Perleberg in Brandenburg
• 1902: Family moves to Berlin
• 1905: Beginning of her education as a singer in the Imperial High School for Music in Berlin
• 1910: First engagement at the City Theater of Hamburg in the role of the second youth in "The Magic Flute"
• 1916: Engagement at the Vienna State Opera, lasting until 1938
• 1926: Debut at the Covent Garden Opera, London, as Marschallin
• 1930: First Tour in America
• 1934: Debut at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, as Sieglinde
• 1938: Final move to America (New York)
• 1939: Husband, Otto Krause, dies on January 22, Lake Saranac, New York
• 1940: Moves to Santa Barbara, California
• 1946: Leaves the Opera stage: as Marschallin at the Metropolitan Opera, New York
• 1951: On February 16 makes final appearance as a concert singer in a concert at Town Hall, New York
• 1963: On April 27 brother dies in Santa Barbara
• 1969: Takes part in the ceremonies celebrating the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Vienna State Opera and visits the Salzburg Festival
• 1976: Died quietly at her home, August 26

From the guide to the Lotte Lehmann Collection., 1880s-1976, 1920s-1976, (University of California, Santa Barbara. Library. Dept. of Special Collections)