Otto Schulmann

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Otto Schulmann ( December 20, 1902 in Munich - February 6, 1989 ) was a German-born conductor and singing teacher who had to flee for racial reasons in 1933 and then lived and taught in San Francisco .

life and work

Schulmann was of Jewish origin, but baptized Catholic. His father owned a small private bank in Munich. He studied at the Munich State Academy of Music with Hugo Röhr (1866–1937), a then very well-known Munich composer and conductor. He became the first Kapellmeister at the Stadttheater Ulm . He was married to Sophie geb. Rappel (1905–1996), singer at the city theater. As a younger colleague, Herbert von Karajan was placed at his side in 1930 . “Before 1933, a friendship had developed between the two conductors, which Schulmann did not comment on later.” Karajan later explained that he had learned a lot from his somewhat older colleague. During many of the performances conducted by Schulmann, Karajan sat between the woodwinds and carefully observed every gesture made by the conductor. Schulmann's wife appeared in several performances directed by Karajan, as Zerlina , as Lola and in an unspecified role in Rigoletto . Schulmann had to flee after the Nazis came to power in 1933. Karajan joined the NSDAP  and took over Schulmann's position.

For a short time, Schulmann was engaged as an operetta conductor at the Klagenfurt City Theater. On December 8, 1933, he conducted a Tosca performance in the Salzburg Festival Hall . The main roles were sung by Jolanthe Garda , Josef Kalenberg and Desider Kovács . He then went to Milan without engagement in order to emigrate to the United States with his wife. The musician couple finally ended up in a refugee camp in Cuba , where they had to wait until 1939 for the US immigration papers.

The couple went to San Francisco . Otto Schulmann taught singing; his wife worked as a cook to save money for her own restaurant. In 1952 Otto Schulmann was hired as a singing teacher at Stanford University . Together with well-known colleagues, he established a new style of vocal pedagogy in Stanford in the 1950s and 1960s, which discovered and promoted numerous talents, for example the hero tenor Jess Thomas and the mezzo-soprano Janis Martin , both later famous for their Wagner interpretations. Jess Thomas also did well as an operetta and musical singer on Broadway . From 1958 to 1968 Otto Schulmann also taught at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music . One of his students there was Ronald Moreno Gallegos .

literature

  • Günter Buhles : Karajan's career start in Ulm. The musical life of a provincial town in the Third Reich . In: das Orchester , 44/1996, pp. 12–18

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Robert C. Bachmann : Karajan: Notes on a career , Econ 1983, p. 94
  2. ^ Franz Endler : Karajan , Hoffmann and Campe 1992, p. 55
  3. ^ Richard Osborne : Conversations with Karajan , Oxford University Press 1989, p. 93
  4. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb : "Completely indifferent" , his NSDAP membership was only a career lever, that is a common opinion about Karajan. But how politically involved was the conductor before 1945? In: Süddeutsche Zeitung (Munich), May 10, 2010, accessed on January 12, 2020
  5. ↑ Oliver Rathkolb: The woman who pushed Karajan's career . The conductor Herbert von Karajan died 30 years ago. Only now does it become clear that he owes his career under National Socialism to his second wife, Anita Gütermann, a "quarter Jew". In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, July 15, 2019, p. 9
  6. ^ Conservatory Mozarteum (Salzburg): Annual Report 1933-34 , accessed on January 12, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Schulmann, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American conductor and singing teacher
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH February 6, 1989