Elisabeth Schwarzkopf

Frau Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's Desert Island Disc

She is dead. Her career is no more. "Her career HAD a major black mark: her relationship with the Nazi Party."

past simple.

R2 people still talk about it though

I heard she had blackheads.

Literal black heads produced by Ilse Koch?

Attended several of her masterclasses and sang in one of them. She was brutal—-and most often right.

I knew an elder gay (who has since died) who LOVED Schwarzkopf. For me, she’s nice but nothing exciting

I love her recordings. Got to meet her once and get her autograph. She seemed pleased that someone so young liked her recordings. There is a video of her giving private master classes(as in there is no audience.) Dear God she is so brutal tearing down these young singers it is almost unwatchable. And then there is the young Asian singer she and the redoubtable Walter Legge, her husband and one of the great classical record producers, thought so much of they were going to give private lessons to. They found out she was trying to make some needed money singing jazz and they immediately and totally cut her off. 'I refuse to teach the skills of a surgeon to someone who has a secret desire to be a butcher!' No crossover for Lizzie except operetta, Danny Boy and some swiss type thing.

And then some of the things I've heard about her Nazi leanings! And strangely I believe her father was anti-Nazi! There is some conjecture that Legge was partly Jewish. And the great conductor Von Karajan who was such a Nazi he joined the part twice(I guess he wanted to be sure but Hitler hated him anyway) married a partly Jewish woman which did not endear him to party officials.

She was just doing what would help her career. She would have almost no choice in Germany. I doubt she believed what the Nazis did.

She was Prussian. It's complicated.

Was her husband gay?

From Wikipedia:

'In 1933, shortly after the Nazis came to power, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf's father, a local school headmaster, was dismissed from his position by the new ruling authorities for having refused to allow a Nazi party meeting at his school. He was also banned from taking any new teaching post.'

I love her 1966 recording of Strauss's "Four Last Songs" and her Hugo Wolf recital from 1953.

Her pussy stank of none too fresh wiener schnitzel.

Very cultivated but she doesn't move me, and there are so many singers that do. That she was an ass to students like R8 said doesn't enamour me either.

Norman Schwarzkopf was her son. They didn't get along at all well.

The correct nick-name is "Betty Black Head".

I never liked the Rosenkavalier recording she did that everyone else swears by. She gurgles many of her lines, like she's a Gabor sister in the 1950s--it's too much, despite her pretty tone.

She doesn't do much for me. Too precious. Every nuance (and that's her stock in trade) sounds calculated.

Sounds like a cold, efficient, good German.

[quote] cold, efficient, good German

Yes. A singing version of the real Marlene Dietrich.

The OP has chosen a most unflattering picture.

Whereas I have linked to a most flattering picture attached to a gushy appreciation..

She must have learned English as a child. It is beautiful.

The book on her listening to her recordings is quite amusing. She loves her voice. Yet she can be quite self critical if she feels she sang things incorrectly. Also she is honest about going on too long with her career when she no longer had the physical support she needed to sing as her body aged. But Legge had insisted she go on practically living through her career(when he died she ended it seemingly immediately) much like Bonynge did with Sutherland. Late Sutherland can be painful. One wishes she had recorded Rodelinda and Anna Bolena earlier in her career.

^ Wasn't there some distasteful story about Mr Legge?

[quote]Let's discuss Frauen Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

Und how many of me do you think I was, OP?

Ach je!

[quote] Late Sutherland can be painful. One wishes she had recorded Rodelinda and Anna Bolena earlier in her career.

Can't one just say "I wish she had recorded Rodelinda and Anna Bolena earlier in her career," rather than trying to sound like one is Queen Elizabeth II?

One finds it even more painful and also Mary!-ish.

WE wish she had recorded Rodelinda and Anna Bolena earlier in her career.

And fuck you R25.

One can appreciate Elisabeth's icy interpretation of 'Four Last Songs'.

And after that, one can feel the contrasting warmth in Gundula Janowitz under Karajan.

The rather staid Opera magazine recently carried an article by someone who knew her that basically outed her as a lesbian

"Frauen" is plural.

But can she dance?? 💃🏼

And as mentioned Legge was possibly gay. I certainly think the great Decca classical producer John Culshaw was. Good looking, very successful, never married and died in the early 80s of hepatitis. His auto bio is worth reading.

R27, icy but still gorgeous

[quote] the great Decca classical producer John Culshaw

I heard him give an interview decades ago. And I cringed at his pretentiousness, self-obsession and self-adoration.

I could very well imagine. Legge and Schwarzkopf were very taken with themselves as well.

R23 I think that 'distasteful story' was about Mr Legge spending time wth new singers after his wife's voice faded.

And I guess there was so much chicanery in that business with the new recording techniques in the new world when "Long Playing Records" made of plastic[?] replaced those old shellac things which lasted only a couple of minutes.