who was Elisabeth Schwarzkopfs teacher and herself a great favorite during the Third Reich?
Yep, her father was Jewish, a fact she kept well hidden during the Nazi era. The big stars, the connoisseur’s favorites, and the truly obscure all rub shoulders on this compendium, in repertoire ranging from cantorials to arias to art songs. “Men of Empire” features a raft of tenors, baritones, and basses from the British Isles, all born before 1900. Richter dwells lovingly on certain famous voices like John McCormack, who gets forty-nine tracks to demonstrate the breadth of his artistry. But there are many novelties, too, including Sir Charles Santley, who was born in 1834, studied with Gioacchino Rossini’s protégé Manuel Garcia, and recorded a smattering of songs and arias at the turn of the century when he was sixty-nine. (Charles Gounod added the famous baritone aria “Avant de quitter ces lieux” to Faust especially for him.) I need hardly stress the delicious frisson created by hearing the voice of this man (born the year that Lucia di Lammermoor received its premiere) brought back
