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German conductor Otto Klemperer attended the Hoch Conservatorium in Frankfurt-am-Main, studied violin and piano at the Klindworth-Scharwenka and Stern Conservatories in Berlin, and composition with the German composer Pfitzner. He made his début in Berlin in 1905, where he conducted fifty performances of Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld, not a work that would now be identified with Klemperer's serious and profoundly personal approach to music.

Shortly afterwards, he visited Gustav Mahler in Vienna and impressed the composer by playing a scherzo from a Mahler symphony by memory at the piano. With Mahler's personal recommendation, Klemperer was appointed choirmaster and conductor at the German Opera in Prague. He held this post for three years, during which he returned to Vienna to assist in rehearsals for Mahler's later symphonies. Again with Mahler's help, he became conductor at the Hamburg Opera in 1910. There followed a succession of appointments in Barmen (1913), Strasbourg (1914-1916), Cologne (1916-1924) and Wiesbaden (1924-1927) and visits to Barcelona, Rome, the U.S.S.R., and the U.S. between 1920 and 1936.

In 1927, he was engaged as director of the Kroll Opera House in Berlin, where he remained until 1931 when political pressures and financial difficulties forced its closure. In addition to better-known operas, Klemperer introduced new works which ran counter to the Nazis' idealized view of German culture, such as Schoenberg's Die glückliche Hand and Erwartung; Hindemith's two operas, Cardillac and Neues von Tag; and Janacek's From the House of the Dead. Indeed, Klemperer was then noted more for his interest in contemporary music than for his interpretations of the mainstream Classical and Romantic repertory on which, in later life, he concentrated almost entirely.

After a highly successful series of London concerts in 1929, Klemperer returned to Germany in 1931 to conduct the Berlin State Opera. As a Jew, he was in danger of persecution and, though honored with a gold medal for his "outstanding contribution to German culture," a German newspaper of the time sourly commented "[h]is whole outlook ran counter to German thought and feeling."

Klemperer was dismissed in 1933 and fled with his family first to Austria and later to Switzerland. While there, he was appointed conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and lived in California from 1935 to 1939 during which he also conducted the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra. In 1937, he helped to reorganize the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, though refused to become its conductor.

Following a brain tumor that left him partially paralyzed, his career faltered. In 1940, Klemperer became a U.S. citizen, but his sufferings were increased by a manic depressive state characterized by recurring cycles of exhilaration and depression. In 1951, an accident at the Montreal airport forced Klemperer to conduct from a chair. To prove himself competent, he hired an orchestra to perform a concert of works of his own choice at Carnegie Hall. It was a success but, after an argument with American immigration authorities, Klemperer returned to Europe where he continued conducting in Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, and France.

The peak of Klemperer's career came in 1959 with the Philharmonia Orchestra, based in London. When attempts were made to disband the orchestra in 1964, its members appointed him president, and the orchestra was reconstituted. As the New Philharmonia, the group reached new heights in the Beethoven cycles during the early 1960s. In the same period he conducted at Covent Garden Opera House.

George London was one of the most celebrated singing actors of his generation, with an imposing stage presence. In addition to excelling in a wide range of roles, from Mozart's Don Giovanni to Wotan to Scarpia to Escamillo, he was the first North American singer to appear on the stage of Moscow's Bolshoi Theater, where in 1960 he triumphed in arguably the greatest Russian male role, Boris Godunov.

London began his vocal training after his family moved to Los Angeles, when he was 15. He made his operatic debut as Doctor Grenvil in Verdi's La traviata at the Hollywood Bowl, and for a while sang with Frances Yeend and Mario Lanza in the Bel Canto Trio. In 1949, he decided to make his career in Europe, and after an audition with Karl Böhm, joined the Vienna State Opera, where he made his debut as Amonasro, and was an overnight success. He remained a favorite there throughout his career, and was named a Kammersänger.

He made his Bayreuth Festival debut the year it reopened, 1951, as Amfortas, and he also appeared there in the title role of The Flying Dutchman. In 1962, he sang the complete Ring in Cologne, under the direction of Wieland Wagner.

In 1966, one of his vocal chords became paralyzed, and he retired from singing. However, he remained very active in the musical world. In 1971, he established a foundation for young singers (a list of just the most prominent award recipients includes Renée Fleming, Kathleen Battle, Jerry Hadley, Barbara Hendricks, James Morris, and Dawn Upshaw).

He also served as artistic administrator of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts (Washington, D.C.) from 1968 to 1971, and executive director of the National Opera Institute from 1971 to 1976, as well as the director of the Washington Opera from 1975 to 1979. In 1975, in Seattle, he staged the first-ever complete Ring Cycle in English.

Rita Streich, a light lyric coloratura, was the child of a Russian mother and a German prisoner-of-war father. Circuitously, the family made its way to Berlin where Streich grew up, and studied with Maria Ivogün, Erna Berger, and Willi Domgraf-Fassbänder (the father of Brigitte, and Germany's leading Papageno between wars). She made her debut in 1943 at Aussig (today Ústí nad Labem on the northern border of the Czech Republic), singing Zerbinetta in Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. In 1946, she became a member of the Berlin Staatsoper in the Unter den Linden, featured as Blonde in Mozart's The Abduction from the Seraglio and Olympia in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann. There, until 1951, she also sang Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Gilda in Rigoletto, and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. During two subsequent seasons at the Städtische Oper, temporarily relocated in the Theater des Westens, she sang Zerbinetta, Konstanze this time in The Seraglio, and the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute. In 1952 - 1953 she was the Woodbird in Wagner's Siegfried at the reopened Bayreuth Festival, then joined the Vienna State Opera, where she remained a member until her retirement from the stage in 1972. Streich made frequent guest appearances at Munich, however, and in 1954 debuted at London (Zerlina and Susanna, in Mozart's Don Giovanni and The Marriage of Figaro, respectively), the Salzburg Festival (as Aennchen in Der Freischütz under Furtwängler), and Rome (Sophie again). La Scala came later on.

The soprano made her U.S. debut in 1957 at San Francisco, singing two performances each as Despina in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Zerbinetta in Ariadne, and Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier. She returned in 1959 for two more Zerbinettas, but in 1960 switched to the Chicago Lyric Opera -- a house too capacious for her voice. She appeared three times as Susanna in Figaro, and repeated the role in 1962, adding three more performances as Amor in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice. These were her last American opera appearances. Her voice was a small instrument for all the purity and technical control, better suited to a small theater such as Glyndebourne, where she appeared for the first time in 1958 as Zerbinetta. During the 1950s, Streich became a best-selling name on recordings as Zerbinetta, Sophie, Susanna, Aennchen, Adele in Die Fledermaus, and Blonde, but especially on recital discs that included coloratura stunt-fluff as well as music by Mozart, Schubert, Wolf, Richard Strauss, even Milhaud -- most carefully chosen for the fach and size of her voice, although not always temperamentally suitable.

In the 1960s ,she appeared in Viennese operettas as well as operatic repertory, generously documented on German broadcast tapes of live performances. Streich retired from the stage in 1972 to teach at Essen, but returned four years later to Vienna, where she continued to teach, and where she died at the age of sixty-six. In the 1950s, and for some years after, she was considered the foremost German coloratura of her generation, often likened to her ageless teacher Erna Berger.

Ludwig Weber was among the great basses of the twentieth century. His voluminous and beautiful voice, at once dark and imposing, was flexible enough to make him a superb Osmin, while its soaring top allowed him to fashion climaxes that were shattering in their impact. His soft singing, based on an unfailing legato, added a dimension to his art beyond that of many other singers, regardless of vocal register. He was a protean artist, menacing in roles of villainous intent, while flooding the stage with an incomparable humanity in parts needing spiritual depth. During the post-WWII reopening season of the Bayreuth Festival, for example, he was both a warmly compassionate Gurnemanz in Parsifal and the very embodiment of implacable evil as Hagen in Götterdämmerung (both captured on recording).

Weber originally considered a career as a painter, but his splendid voice caused him to rethink that direction and concentrate on a career in music instead. In 1919, he began studies with Alfred Boruttau in Vienna and the following year he made his debut at the Vienna Volksoper as Fiorello in Rossini's Barbiere di Siviglia. In the 1920s, he sang at both Düsseldorf and Cologne before being engaged for the Munich Wagner Festival in 1931. His impressive voice and authoritative interpretations led to his engagement as a member of the Bayerische Staatsoper in 1933 and Weber spent nearly two decades in Munich singing many of the largest roles in the bass repertory. He sang the role of Holsteiner, Commandant of the Enemy Army in the 1938 premiere of Strauss' Friedenstag at Munich. From 1945 until his retirement, Weber was a member of the Vienna Staatsoper.

Beginning in 1936, Weber established an association with opera in London. His Pogner in the opening night Meistersinger (April 27) was found somewhat severe, but his noble voice and superb acting were found highly commendable. Two nights later, Weber's Gurnemanz drew from critic Ernest Newman the opinion that his performance was unsurpassable. In other Wagner operas, Weber was complimented for his powerful Hunding and for his "superbly Mephistophelean Hagen." The following year, Weber returned to add Daland and to repeat his King Marke in Tristan, singled out for its originality and depth. For the 1938 London season, Weber added his richly detailed Rocco in Fidelio and his slyly acted Osmin in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, singing the role with "consummate ease."

The Second World War made Weber unavailable to London for the duration, but he made a welcome return in 1947 with the Vienna Staatsoper, singing the Commendatore in Don Giovanni and Rocco. When he rejoined the London company (now the Royal Opera House) for the 1949 - 1950 season, it was to dominate the Ring with his superlative singing and acting.

During his years in Munich and Vienna, Weber's Baron Ochs in Rosenkavalier ripened to a level second only to Richard Mayr's and his Boris was legendary. At the Salzburg Festival in 1947, he was part of a star-studded cast in the premiere of Gottfried von Einem's Dantons Tod. It was at Bayreuth, however, that Weber found artistic immortality, blending his eminence and experience with Wieland Wagner's vision to create unsurpassed realizations of Wagner's bass roles.

While Weber's top and bottom registers remained virtually unimpaired until his retirement, increasing unsteadiness and wayward intonation plagued his middle voice. These old-age failings, however, cannot detract from Weber's reputation as an artist of the highest ranking.