Walter Taussig

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Walter Taussig ( February 9, 1908 in Vienna - July 31, 2003 in New York City ) was an Austrian singing teacher , choir director and conductor . He was forced to emigrate by Hitler's Germany and did not return to Austria permanently after the fall of the Nazi regime.

He worked for more than fifty years at the Metropolitan Opera of New York and 19 years at the Salzburg Festival . He instructed some of the most famous singers of the 20th century in rehearsing new roles - including Callas , Plácido Domingo , Birgit Nilsson and Deborah Voigt .

life and work

Walter Taussig was the son of Josef Heinrich Taussig (1876–1943) and Paula Caroline nee. Roth (1880-1967). He had a sister who later became famous mathematician Herta Freitag (1908–2000). He enrolled at the Vienna Music Academy , where he studied oboe , composition (with Franz Schmidt ) and conducting (with Robert Heger ) until 1928 . At the same time, he completed a degree in musicology and philosophy at the University of Vienna . He admired Richard Strauss as a conductor and described a Verdi Requiem , conducted by Toscanini , as one of his most lasting memories. He began teaching at an early age, Eli Freud learned to play the piano from him and from Robert Walter Spitz. From 1929 he was engaged at German opera houses, after which he undertook international tours through all of Europe to Finland, Turkey, Egypt and North America until 1939. In between, in 1935, he conducted at the Vienna Volksoper and at the Theater an der Wien . In 1938, during the integration of Austria into the National Socialist German Reich, he was on his way back from a tour in the USA. He did not return, but stayed in France and organized his emigration from there.

The nuclear family was able to get to safety from the Nazi regime. The father died in exile in England in 1943. Walter Taussig, his mother and sister came to the United States via Cuba . While waiting for the immigration papers, he conducted the Havana Philharmonic . In 1941 he worked for the New Opera Company in New York. Years of wandering followed. Between 1946 and 1949 he earned his living at the Chicago and Montreal opera houses and at the San Francisco Opera .

In 1949 he was signed to the Metropolitan Opera in New York. He was hired as a répétiteur and choirmaster , and in 1968 he became an associate conductor . He made a name for himself as a coach and teacher, especially for studying German-language roles. The highly dramatic singer Birgit Nilsson , who came from Sweden, was very grateful to him for the support, she named him “father of my Elektra”. In 18 hours of hard work, he was able to convey the characteristics of the role to her. The Spaniard Plácido Domingo studied the title role in Wagner's Parsifal with him . The singer excelled in this role not only in New York in 1991, but subsequently also at the Vienna State Opera , La Scala in Milan and at the Bayreuth Festival . Taussig also coached Callas and Deborah Voigt , he taught William Wu, a tenor from Taiwan, Loretta di Franco and Dolores Wilson, two sopranos from the USA, and many, many other singers from all over the world. He was full of praise for Callas, he described her as so creative, at the same time modest and uncomplicated in her work. He could discuss every single breath with her - without any ego. "Her curse was that she was so musical and so intelligent that she could even take on roles that her voice basically couldn't handle." He conducted less than a dozen performances at the Met, including a few Traviata performances during the Guest performance in Japan in 1975 and the Rosenkavalier . He regularly led the stage music, which the Met music director James Levine jokingly referred to as the Taussig Philharmonic .

From 1964 he spent nineteen years in a row during the summer in Europe, specifically for the summer break on Semmering and for work in Salzburg, where Herbert von Karajan and Karl Böhm had taken over and held the central functions of the Salzburg Festival . He knew Karajan from his student days at the Vienna Music Academy and had been friends with Böhm since the interwar years. When it came to selecting and supervising singers, he became a gray eminence of the festival and also acted as a coach for Deutsche Grammophon recordings . Although he was the director of the Böhm and Karajan productions, he only appeared on the cast of those years when he also played the harpsichord during the performances .

In the academic year 1965-66 he took over a visiting professorship in Tokyo.

family

Taussig lost at least two aunts in the Holocaust . On her father's side, Leonie Taussig (born 1878) was transferred from Theresienstadt to the Auschwitz extermination camp in May 1944 and murdered there. Helene Fanny Roth (born 1875), his mother's sister, was deported to the Litzmannstadt ghetto on October 28, 1941 and murdered there.

He was married to his wife Lore for sixty years, and they married in 1942. The couple had a daughter, Lynn.

Quotes

"Dear Mrs. Taussig, I have a confession to make. I have had a child with your husband. She is very beautiful, and I call her ' Elektra .' I am absolutely sure he is the father, because I have not been with anybody else. "

- Birgit Nilsson

“There are two theories about old people. One is that old people should step aside to give the younger a chance. This is an easy to understand theory. The other is that old people have valuable experiences that are irreplaceable. Fortunately for me, the Met considers the latter theory to be valid. "

- Walter Taussig : Quote here. according to the New York Times obituary

Award

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Opera News : The Associate , Interview with Ira Siff, April 2001
  2. ↑ Robert Kriechbaumer : The taste of transience , Jüdische Sommerfrische in Salzburg, Böhlau Verlag Vienna 2002, pp. 338-340
  3. ↑ Variety : Walter Taussig / Conductor, vocal coach , August 11, 2003
  4. ↑ LA Times : Walter Taussig, 95; Vocal Coach at NY Metropolitan Opera for 50 Years , August 5, 2003
  5. ^ Obituaries, Opera News , October 2003
  6. ↑ Documentation archive of the Austrian resistance : Victim search , accessed on June 29, 2020
  7. ^ New York Times : Walter Taussig Dies at 95; Coached Opera Singers , obituary by Anne Midgette, August 2, 2003
personal data
SURNAME Taussig, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American singing teacher, choir director and conductor of Austrian origin
DATE OF BIRTH February 9, 1908
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna
DATE OF DEATH July 31, 2003
Place of death New York City , (New York)