Documentary

Richard Tauber - Lauritz Melchior

Belcanto: the Tenors of the 78 Era

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Cast

Richard Tauber

Lauritz Melchior

Program notes

Discover the Bel-Canto Series: The Tenors of the 78 Era, 13 portraits of the most illustrious lyrical singers of the beginning of the 20th century. We present 2 episodes: Richard Tauber and Lauritz Melchior.

Jan Schmidt-Garre has produced two documentaries of outstanding intelligence and quality. Richard Tauber, the Austrian tenor, marked people's minds. He enjoyed unprecedented popularity at the operas of Munich and Vienna where he played the role of Calaf in the first Turandot in 1926. He made appearances in the repertoire of the Viennese operetta from 1925 (with Paganini) and Lehar wrote works for him that he sang many times. This profuse and disparate activity was coupled with many recordings and a great deal of film acting. Allegedly he had perfect pitch and the scope of his repertoire was impressive.

The second documentary recounts, through archive footage and the analysis of excerpts of operas, the life of Danish tenor Lauritz Melchior who knew Furtwängler, Arturo Toscanini and many other prominent figures of the period. He was the main Wagnerian tenor from 1926 to 1950 at the Metropolitan Opera where he performed Tristan more than 200 times and Siegfried 181 times. This tenor left his mark thanks to his charisma, his talent as an actor and his inexhaustible energy. At the age of 70 he was still singing the first act of the Valkyrie on Danish radio! A phenomenon not to be missed!

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