Comments on: Viennese Operetta Gems 1927-1949: A Classic Naxos Compilation

By: Helen Koschewitz Flack

Helen Koschewitz Flack — Mon, 18 Mar 2024 12:08:54 +0000

Good Morning,

I am doing research for a friend and I was hoping that you could possibly help me.

We are looking for information regarding Eduard Heil (Edy Heil) He was an operetta singer in Germany. The following venues is where he performed:

Stadt Theater Gottingen (10/1/32 – 3/31/34)
Stadt Theater Gelsenkirchen )10/1/36 – 4/25/37)
Stadt Theater Bremerhaven (8/10/38 – 5/9/40
Central Theater Dresden (6/7/40 – 7/31/40)
Stadtische Buhnen Halle Saale (9/1/40 – 8/31/47)
Thalia Theater Hannover (8/1/47 – 7/31/49)
Deutsches Theater Munchen (1/6/50 – 2/5/50)
Hamburger Volksoper (3/25/51 – 4/30/51)

We are looking for any archived recordings of any of these operettes.

We welcome any information or links that you can provide.

We thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Helen Flack
Huntingdon Valley, PA USA

By: Alex Segal

Alex Segal — Fri, 28 Apr 2017 09:57:24 +0000

Thanks, Kevin, for your comment. I think that if Elisabeth Schumann’s pre-Nazi era operetta singing is similar to her 1937 operetta singing, then it is not reasonable to suggest that her 1937 singing is complicit with Nazism. My understanding is that she hated Nazism, and that led her to leave Germany in the late 1930s. I suspect the 1937 recording was made in London because by then she was no longer living in Germany. What would have motivated her to make the pro-Nazi political statement you see as a possibility in her case?

By: kevin

kevin — Thu, 27 Apr 2017 12:11:06 +0000

The recording in question, Ziehrer’s “Sei gepriesen du lauschige Nacht” from LANDSTREICHER, was made in 1937, in London for HMV. It fully represents the particular post-1933 operetta style cultivated in Germany. Schumann might have sung operettas before the Nazis came to power, as encores or bonus tracks, but she was never an “operetta star” like Adele Kern or Gitta Alpar (or Jarmila Novotna). To hear her with this stylistic approach in the late 30s can be interpreted as a political statement, comparable to Erna Berger’s operetta recordings. I am not suggesting that the singers themselves shared the political ideals of the Nazis, but they participated in redefining the genre in a way Nazi ideology wanted.

By: Alex Segal

Alex Segal — Wed, 26 Apr 2017 16:35:16 +0000

Are you suggesting that Elisabeth Schumann’s style of singing operetta is a prodict of the Nazi era? What makes me doubt this is that she sang operetta in this way before the Nazi era.