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Lauritz Melchior was the first of the great Wagnerian heldentenors (heroic tenors) to sing on records, and he was the first operatic tenor to sing on radio. His recorded legacy is considered a benchmark for all subsequent Siegfrieds and Tristans. One can only imagine what a legacy was lost when he and his wife fled Germany in 1939; his home there was subsequently occupied and looted by both German and Russian soldiers and a collection of unpublished recordings was used for target practice. Contemporary reviews indicated that he was frequently lax in keeping rhythms, and many of his debuts were not completely successful, but he had a long operatic career.

Melchior started singing at an early age, when a boarder in his father's house who was a voice teacher gave Melchior and the other children in the family singing lessons. He often accompanied his sister (who was blind) to the opera, and from her reactions he learned how dramatically powerful a voice can be, even without stagecraft. Like many Wagnerian and heroic tenors, he started his career as a baritone (and very briefly as a bass), first studying privately with Paul Bang, and after he turned 21, studying at the Copenhagen Royal Opera School. His unofficial debut was in 1912 as Germont in La Traviata with a tiny touring company, the Zwicki and Stagel Opera Company, and he made his official debut in 1913 as Silvio in I Pagliacci at the Royal Opera. He remained there for several seasons, first in comprimario roles, and later in major roles, beginning what looked like a solid career as a Verdi baritone when singing di Luna in Il Trovatore and the elder Germont in La Traviata.

A colleague heard him take an unwritten high C in Il Trovatore one evening and told the directors of the Royal Opera she heard the foundation of a heldentenor in Melchior's voice. The management agreed and made arrangements for him to restudy his voice with the tenor Wilhelm Herold. He made his debut as a tenor in 1918 as Tannhauser, again at the Copenhagen Royal Opera. However, he was still uncertain of his technique and voice. In 1919, a wealthy patron encouraged the conductor Henry Woods to audition him, and he had his London debut at the Proms in 1920. He came to the attention of another patron, Hugh Walpole, the noted author, who provided Melchior with a generous allowance to further his studies as well as support his family. His Covent Garden debut was in 1924 as Siegmund. He auditioned for Siegfried Wagner (the son of the composer) and made his Bayreuth debut in 1924 as Parsifal. He continued to take leading roles there, including the legendary 1930 Tristan und Isolde under Toscanini, who dubbed him "Tristanissimo," until shortly before World War II. His Metropolitan debut was in 1926 as Tannhauser and he sang there regularly until 1950, when one of Rudolf Bing's first actions as general manager was to decline to renew his contract. This was partly for extra-musical reasons, including a predilection for practical jokes and appearing on "low brow" venues such as radio comedy and variety shows with Fred Allen and Bing Crosby, and partly for a growing disinclination to attend lengthy rehearsals.

After this dismissal, Melchior retired from the stage, though he continued to appear in films and operettas, sang on the radio (including a broadcast of the first act of Die Walküre from Copenhagen on his 70th birthday), and as part of his own touring music company.

One of the most respected Wagnerian sopranos of the mid-twentieth century, Astrid Varnay was born in Stockholm, Sweden, the child of two celebrated Hungarian singers. After spending her infancy in Norway where her father had been engaged as a stage director in Kristiania, she moved with her parents to Buenos Aires and the Teatro Colón; finally, the family traveled on to the United States. After her father died tragically shortly before his 35th birthday, Varnay's mother turned to teaching in order to make ends meet, and Violet (as she was known then) eventually became her most accomplished student.

Astrid Varnay made a surprise Metropolitan Opera debut as Sieglinde on December 6, 1941, when the great Lotte Lehmann took ill and no other substitute was available. Varnay was already under contract for performances in the lighter Wagnerian soprano repertory beginning the following month, but her success in Die Walküre, broadcast nationwide, served notice that hers was a voice destined for larger roles. Just six days later, another indisposition put her on stage as Brünnhilde, an even greater challenge.

With careful supervision from Met general manager Edward Johnson, Varnay's appearances were rationed to prevent her from becoming a vocal casualty. The rigorous training she had received from her mother assured that a technique was in place to serve her well in the heaviest repertory. Beyond strong and confident singing was a histrionic aptitude that marked her as an exceptional actress. With a trim and agile figure, she moved with an ease and sense of purpose that set her apart from her contemporaries.

With the end of WWII, Varnay traveled to other venues. Her Isolde in London in 1948 prompted critic Ernest Newman to write that hers was one of the best sung and acted interpretations he had encountered in his long memory. When Kirsten Flagstad declined to sing at the Bayreuth Festival about to reopen in 1951, she suggested Varnay instead; the grandsons of Richard Wagner engaged her unseen and unheard. Her stunning performances in the minimalist productions of Wieland Wagner set new standards in opera performance, prompting the director to say, "Why do I need a tree on the stage when I have Astrid Varnay?"

Varnay was to be a mainstay at Bayreuth for 17 seasons. Although she made few studio recordings, live performances reveal a huge instrument of enormous depth (putting many a contralto to shame) with a top register of lacerating thrust and power. Her legendary Götterdämmerung Brünnhilde, recorded under conductor Hans Knappertsbusch in 1951 but not issued due to artist contract obstacles, was finally released to thunderous acclaim in 1999. Varnay's stature as sovereign singer and actress was confirmed in every measure of the exhausting role.

During the early 1950s, Varnay became increasingly aware of Met general manager Rudolf Bing's indifference to Wagner and turned her attention to other theatres in Europe: Maggio Musicale in Florence, Paris, La Scala, Salzburg (where she was an overwhelming Elektra) and Munich.

After three decades of singing the dramatic soprano repertory, Varnay gradually entered the realm of parts customarily sung by mezzo-sopranos. As she entered her mid-sixties, she then moved into cameo roles, brief appearances imbued with all the care and perception brought to her heroic repertory of earlier times.

Varnay's autobiography, written with Donald Arthur, was published in November 2000 under the title 55 Years in Five Acts: My Life in Opera. Her intelligence, perception, good humor, and generosity to fellow artists attest to why she was regarded as the best of colleagues.

Swedish mezzo-soprano Kerstin Thorborg was one of the finest artists before the public during her prime years in the 1930s. Celebrated by critics in London and New York, she was admired for her completeness as an artist, excelling in both opera and concert work, and adept in many areas of the repertoire. Attractive and supple on stage, she was regarded as among the finest actresses in opera. In the company of such fellow singers as Leider, Flagstad, Lehmann, Melchior, and Schorr, she made her era an outstanding one for Wagnerian performance.

The daughter of a newspaper editor in northern Sweden, Thorborg absorbed her parents' interest in music at an early age. After studying with a local teacher, she entered a competition for a place in the Stockholm Opera's school for young singers among three chosen from more than a thousand young applicants.

Upon completion of her training in singing, dance, and stage deportment, Thorborg made her debut at the Stockholm Opera in Aida, achieving a substantial success with her first Ortrud in 1924. The mezzo remained with the company until 1930 (also fulfilling numerous concert engagements) before accepting an offer from the Prague National Theatre and, subsequently, Nuremberg. After a successful series of performances in both houses, she was summoned to Berlin, where she was engaged by the Städtische Oper, singing there from 1932 to 1935. In 1935, she began appearing at Vienna Staatsoper and remained there until 1938. Her Salzburg roles between 1935 and 1937 included Orfeo, Magdalene, Brangäne, Donna Mercedes in Hugo Wolf's rarely performed Der Corregidor, and Eglantine in Weber's Euryanthe. In the midst of her European engagements, she managed to fit in a season at Buenos Aires as well.

In 1936, Thorborg made debuts at both Covent Garden and the Metropolitan Opera, receiving praise for her consummate artistry. Her May appearance in Die Walküre prompted London's very particular Ernest Newman to describe her as "the finest Fricka I have ever seen or hope to see." Later, Newman greeted her Kundry with these words: "She walks like a goddess, sits like a statue; and not a single gesture is wasted throughout the whole evening. All in all, I would rank her as the greatest Wagnerian actress of the present day."

In New York, Thorborg's December debut was again as Fricka, a performance also celebrated as that of a great actress. While critics deemed her somewhat too bright in tone, they greeted her portrayal as altogether exceptional. Thorborg was described as "a woman of regal and distinguished beauty, stately in bearing, slender, tall and straight." The reviewer hailed her as "an actress of intelligence and skill and power." Thorborg's appearances at Covent Garden ended before the outbreak of World War II, but her Metropolitan engagement extended over fifteen seasons, during which she proved herself a mainstay of the Wagnerian wing. In 243 performances, she ranged over nearly the entire range of Wagner roles for mezzo and contralto, also performing such parts as Amneris, Azucena, Ulrica, Orfeo, Octavian, Herodias, and Marina in Boris Godunov.

Thorborg sang two seasons at San Francisco (1938 and 1943) and in Chicago between 1942 and 1945. Not surprisingly, Thorborg was an avid sportswoman, swimming regularly and enjoying target shooting.

Among Thorborg's finest recording are Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde and excerpts from several Wagner operas.

Erich Leinsdorf was one of the most respected (if not always well-liked) European-born conductors and music directors to achieve prominence in America after World War II. An acclaimed operatic conductor, whose recordings of Turandot and Madame Butterfly from the end of the 1950's remain among the most popular in the catalog, his reputation as a conductor of orchestral music hasn't survived quite as well.

He was born Erich Landauer in Vienna, Austria, and by the age of five was enrolled in a local music school, beginning piano studies at age eight. He subsequently studied at the music department of the University of Vienna, and from 1931 until 1933 took courses at the Vienna Conservatory, making his debut at the podium at the Musikvereinsaal upon graduation. He became the assistant conductor of the Workers' Chorus in Vienna in 1933, and a year later successfully auditioned before Bruno Walter and Arturo Toscanini at the Salzburg Festival, where he was appointed an assistant, serving under Toscanini.

Leinsdorf was engaged by the Metropolitan Opera in New York in 1937, and his American debut took place there, at age 25, when he conducted Wagner's Die Walkure on Jan. 21 of 1938. His success with other Wagner operas led to his appointment at the Met in 1939 as head of the company's German repertoire. It was while at the Met that he began developing a reputation as a strict taskmaster, demanding more rehearsal time from his singers and extremely precise fidelity to the written score by his orchestras--although the audiences appreciated the results he achieved, many of the singers he worked with were highly critical of his work and the demands he made upon them.

He took American citizenship in 1942, and the following year he was appointed music director of the Cleveland Orchestra. He had no time to achieve much in the new post, however, as Leinsdorf was inducted into the United States Army in December of that year. He was discharged in 1944, and returned to the Met, where he conducted during the 1944-45 season. During 1945 and 1946, he also conducted the Cleveland Orchestra on several occasions, and returned to Europe where, as one of a group of major Austrian-born conductors who had no connections with the Nazis, he was engaged to conduct the Vienna Philharmonic. He found his reception in the city of his birth, first overrun by the Nazis, then bombed and invaded by the Allies and starved in the immediate wake of World War II, however, to be less than entirely cordial.

By 1947, he was back in the United States as music director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in upstate New York, a post he held until 1955. Leinsdorf served as music director of the New York City Opera for part of 1956, before returning to the Met as a conductor and musical consultant, amid numerous guest conductor assignments in America and Europe. In 1962, Leinsdorf succeeded to one of the most prestigious musical posts in America, as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, succeeding Charles Munch. Leinsdorf's tenure at Boston was extremely productive but stormy. He found the political considerations of a music directorship, juggling the demands of individual musicians, their unions and existing work and rehearsal rules, and the board of directors, to be a distraction from his musical goals. Additionally, it was during this period that Leinsdorf became known for being openly critical of the shortcomings, in terms of education, of the musicians working under him (especially gaps in their cultural educations), errors in published scores of established musical works, and the errors made by his fellow conductors.

He resigned the Boston post with the 1968-69 season, happy to have served in one of the most exalted musical positions in the United States, but equally happy, in his own words, to have exited with his health intact. Leinsdorf conducted opera and concert performances throughout the United States and Europe for the next two decades, including work with the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic. In 1978, he took up his first permanent post in Europe, was principal conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in West Berlin, a post he held until 1980. In 1976, he published Cadenza: A Musical Career, a memoir that was as noted for its candid, brutally honest assessments of himself and his fellow musicians as for the biographical details it offered. He continued recording until the final years of his performing career, at the end of the 1980's, including audiophile digital performances of Wagner orchestral music for the Sheffield Labs label.

Erich Leinsdorf's greatest operatic achievements on record, Turandot and Madame Butterfly, remain in print on compact disc more than 30 years after they were recorded, but his orchestral recordings haven't fared as well. Mostly confined to RCA/BMG with the Boston Symphony, a relative handful of these have appeared on budget CD reissues (mostly BMG's "Silver Seal" label), including a Mahler Fifth Symphony that is no longer really competitive with other versions out there (at the time it was recorded in the mid-1960's, it was one of perhaps four or five versions, not one of 60 as it is today); ironically, his Mahler Symphony No. 3, one of the finest things he ever did, and one of the better performances of this monumental work ever done, remains out-of-print, and well worth owning on vinyl. ~ Bruce Eder

Mahler Symphony No. 5 RCA/BMG [5]

Symphony No. 3 RCA [8] (out-of-print)

Mozart Don Giovanni London [7]

Puccini Madame Butterfly RCA/BMG [7]

Turandot RCA/BMG [8]