Richard Wagner : Lohengrin - Melchior , Lehmann , Schorr ; Bodanzky - Metropolitan Opera 1935
(The Richard Wagner opera Lohengrin in a historic complete...)
The Richard Wagner opera Lohengrin in a historic complete performance from the Metropolitan Opera in New York on December 21 , 1935 . The cast included Lotte Lehmann Lauritz Melchior Emanuel List Friedrich Schorr Marjorie Lawrence and Julius Heuhn , all under the direction of Arthur Bodanzky . As a bonus, the 3 - CD set on Melodram features live performances of arias from Tannhauser Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg and Die Walkure with Lotte Lehmann .
Arthur Bodanzky was an Austrian-born American conductor. He was conductor at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, from 1915 to 1939.
Background
Artur Bodanzky was born on December 16, 1877, in Vienna, Austria, the eldest of the four children of Carl and Hanna (Feuchtwang) Bodanzky. His father was a paper manufacturer; his younger brother Robert was the librettist for operettas by Franz Lehar, Oskar Straus, and other Viennese composers.
Education
Young Artur studied at the Vienna Conservatory, with the violin as his principal subject.
Career
While still in his teens Arthur played in various Viennese orchestras, including that of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde. In 1898, when he was a violinist in the Vienna Court Opera Orchestra under Gustav Mahler, he decided to become a conductor. Mahler became interested in him and advised him during much of his early career, which began in 1900 with light opera in Budweis. In 1902 he became a vocal coach and Mahler's assistant at the Vienna Court Opera, and he also directed light opera at the Theater an der Wien. In 1906 he left Vienna to conduct for the new Lortzing Opera in Berlin, then went to Prague to conduct both opera and concerts. In 1909 he undertook his first major appointment as chief conductor and director of opera at the Grand-Ducal Theatre in Mannheim. The next few years brought him a widening European reputation. He conducted the first London performance of Parsifal in 1914 and, had World War I not intervened, would have directed the Wagner "Ring" cycle in Paris the next year.
In 1915, at the call of Giulio Gatti-Casazza, Bodanzky came to New York to join the Metropolitan Opera as conductor of its German repertoire, making his American debut with Gotterdämmerung on November 18. Bodanzky soon applied for American citizenship and brought his family to New York in 1916. His New York activities began to expand beyond the Metropolitan. In April 1919 he was invited to conduct the New Symphony Orchestra and directed it during the 1919-1920 season, sharing the following season with Willem Mengelberg. In 1921-1922 he was a guest conductor of the Philharmonic Society. In 1920 he became the permanent conductor of the Society of the Friends of Music, a New York organization which sponsored periodic concerts of music outside the usual symphonic repertoire and later concentrated on choral works. He resigned from the Metropolitan in April 1929 in order to devote himself entirely to the Friends, who had plans for a greatly expanded schedule. But his successor at the Metropolitan lasted only three weeks, and Bodanzky, invited to return, was back in the pit on November 26. The Friends succumbed to financial stress in 1931, and Bodanzky devoted his remaining years entirely to the Metropolitan.
In the fall of 1939 Bodanzky was stricken with heart disease complicated by arthritis and died within a month, after a coronary occlusion. He was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Tarrytown, New York
Tall, slender, with a lean, hawk-like, intent face, Bodanzky was genial in private life, although as a conductor he was reputed to be one of the strictest musical disciplinarians of his time. With an immense capacity for hard work, he also had a remarkable memory for detail.
Connections
In 1908, Arthur Bodanzky married Ada Elisa Perutz in Prague. They had two children, Carl Arthur and Elizabeth Maria.