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Elisabeth Schwarzkopf discusses her roles and interpretation ; part 2

BROADCAST: Apr. 11, 1962 | DURATION: 00:16:35

Synopsis

According to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, at a young age, she first started to play the piano and viola before she studied singing. Madame Schwarzkopf explained the importance of being able to play different roles. With regards to luck, Schwarzkopf says it happens only once, when one finds the right teacher. All the rest, explains Schwarzkopf is hard work.

Transcript

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Studs Terkel The matter, then, of being an actress-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Mm-hm.

Studs Terkel -as well as a musician.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel This, then, has led to Madame Schwarzkopf. One of the influences in your life, being what you are, the combination of the two.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes, I think I was fortunate. I've been always been exposed to very many influences, and I have never really thought that my- I was confined only to one kind of singing, let us say oratorio or lieder, or opera or operetta, something. I've always done all of them sim- simultaneously, and tried to keep my my styles clean and apart. You have to know what you are doing in which moment. You know, when you're singing Bach you have to know how you go from one note to the other, and when you have to sing Strauss you also have to know how you go from one note to the other. And when you sing Verdi, you know, you have to do an Italian portamento and not a German portamento, which are two different things, and so on, many things, I could talk hours and hours on this.

Studs Terkel And this Ariadne, you are now Ariadne, who some would say that Zerbinetta and Ariadne are two sides of the same, of all women, now wouldn't they?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Well, Zerbinetta thinks Ariadne is only a woman, too, and just of her kind, but of course Ariadne is really not. And this monologue is one of the greatest pieces in the opera. It's not loud or anything at all dramatic, but she is wanting to die and she's imagining the realm of the dead, really, as being the supreme goal of her life.

Studs Terkel And Zerbinetta's trying- Go

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Go over into the [unintelligible] without really knowing it, you see, in that then she will be happy.

Studs Terkel Elisabeth Schwarzkopf on Ariadne's very moving monologue. Of this, not only of this particular portion, but of the role itself, the character Ariadne, Hofmannsthal, who wrote the lyrics, Hofmannsthal wrote in an open letter, and one specifically addressed to Strauss, he said, "The problem was one of faithfulness personified in Ariadne, who can be only one man's wife or love or mourner. Her counterpart is Zerbinetta, who is in her element when dancing from one man to another. Only a miracle of God can redeem Ariadne, and she, taking the God for death abandons herself to Him as one abandons oneself to death. However what to Ariadne appears to be a miracle, it is to Zerbinetta an everyday event. The exchange of a new lover for the old one. And so the two worlds are in the end connected ironically by non-comprehension." Is it that neither one understands the other, would you say,

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf No, well, Zerbinetta really understands Ariadne quite well, but I think it's her kind of view which is rather tinged.

Studs Terkel So the irony is here throughout.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh, it's a wonderful thing, yes. After all, there are more sides to women than only one, are there?

Studs Terkel And then we think, too, of your- of your range, your range as a vocalist it's a natural for- is this a very, it this a very challenging role? Oh

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh yes, it's very difficult. But Strauss is so wonderful to sing, you know, it's very strange that very many singers who can sing Mozart can also sing Strauss. He seems to have, I don't know why it is, I've always been puzzled about this, but the great Strauss singers were also great Mozart singers always.

Studs Terkel Well, this is true, huh?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel You can't think of any one reas-, perhaps, why this would be?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf I don't know, it seems to- he seems to have a feeling for the women's voices, which is quite extraordinary really.

Studs Terkel Oh, you mean the great Strauss singers are also great Mozart. You're speaking of the women, not so much- of the women primarily.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh yeah. Well, think of, well, you should know Claire Dux and Rethberg, two you know very well.

Studs Terkel A composer for women, would you say this applies, this station so often plays your recording of 'Lullaby' in "Die Kluge," the wise woman-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh

Studs Terkel -the king.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel Orff, who seems to be a tremendous-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Controversical, controversial

Studs Terkel -controversial figure and experimental. What is it about Orff that excites you, or that moves you?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Well, naturally every thing new is basically exciting, although I don't say I like everything new very much. I like Orff to a degree, I must say, because I know my husband, who you know is English, he gets very much carried away by all this great, well, shouting scenes and and and all those [biergarten?] things. And I, for me they are most embarrassing, I must say.

Studs Terkel They're embarrassing to you.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes, they are really. I mean, being a German, you know, and knowing this as a kind of side of the Germans which is not one of their best ones, almost-

Studs Terkel Is it a lustiness? You're not opposed to lustiness?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes, I find it a bit embarrassing. It's like when, for instance, when you find a group of German students stand in front of the Mona Lisa and the [Paris things?], and they will talk with very loud voices or so, which is also most embarrassing, you see? And so every, I think every nation has their sides which their rather want hidden, if not exploited. For me, I have my-

Studs Terkel I think every people finds in themselves something that they-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yeah,

Studs Terkel -feel self-conscious about.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes. So I am about this, but I know that it is a great force, Orff is a wonderful force, you know, and he is a great, a real great man in opera, I think he's the only one we have at the moment, and he has done something new, completely new, and it does give a lot of things to a lot of people.

Studs Terkel And "Die Kluge" is based on the old legend of the wise woman, the wise girl.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes, 'eine Märchen,' as we say. You know that we have very many-

Studs Terkel Fabel.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf -fairytales in Germany as in every other country, and there is one about the- one just about that story.

Studs Terkel Would you mind setting the scene for the lullaby that you're singing in this?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh dear, wait a moment. She has- she wants to take, she's allowed by the king to take one possession with her which she loves most of all, he's driving her away as the unfaithful woman, and she's decided to take the king with her, her husband. So she sings him into sleep and then she just takes him on her back and carries him away.

Studs Terkel Lullaby to her husband.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel ["Der kaiser, der koenig, der bauer, das kinde"?] The emperor, the king, the farmer in the land of Nod, the Latin phrase? They're all as innocent.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Innocent.

Studs Terkel One as the other.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel Beautiful theme.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf That, of course, is a marvelous invention of his, I must say. It's a wonderful thing.

Studs Terkel It seems that in one manner or another some of the songs that you sing have this universal tug, this universal quality, you

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Very many of the German songs have that, you know, and I'm glad that I happened to be the one which is on that one record.

Studs Terkel This applies to so many of the folk songs, too, of course in the program at Orchestra Hall tomorrow night, which is primarily Viennese songs, won't they?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes, yes, an operetta, not songs-

Studs Terkel Just pieces from the opera-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel And we will hear one of those, and since we started talking about folksongs, you know ["Einem Kunig Grunden"?], 'in the cold ground,' this is a this is definitely

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf It is absolutely a folksong, everybody knows it, you know. My grandmother used to sing it, everyone's grandmother used to know it. And I'm sure you have many people here whose grandmothers know it still.

Studs Terkel Even though it's composed songs, [still it's

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Well, it is a poem by [Agnoff?]. But still it became quite possession of everybody really.

Studs Terkel Did you remember this one as a small girl?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh yes, of course.

Studs Terkel Everyone has fully accepted.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel Oh, when you were very little before you studied with Maria

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Mm-hm.

Studs Terkel -did you, even though you were interested in the instrument and the piano, was it piano and the viola?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Viola, piano, I played the organ, I played even the glockenspiel, you know, in the band, in the school band.

Studs Terkel Were you always singing?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh yes, I was singing from when I was quite little, really. But I, well, I really wanted to become some kind of musician, do something with music. So eventually when I had finished school I went to audition whether it was worthwhile to study singing, and they said, "Of course, yes." So. And I did that along with the instruments still, I still tried to.

Studs Terkel Still

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh yes, because when you start out singing you never know what's going to happen, you see, and actually from those 50 or 55 young people who then auditioned with me, I think there are only two or three who survived as singers. There's a lot more to singing than just learning to sing, you know, which is, of course, the first thing you have to do. My first teacher nearly- she was a wonderful lieder singer, very well known. She used to sing lieder with Brahms at the piano, involved with the piano, and she was marvelous. But she started out on me to sing the "Erlkönig," "Elf-King" full power with all the expression I had, and of course that- I lasted about five bars and then the voice was gone, out, finished, "halt air," as we say.

Studs Terkel But through the-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf And I nearly lost my voice with this teacher, although she was really very great. But she said then after two years, "But my child, you're doing something wrong," and of course she couldn't tell me what

Studs Terkel This wasn't Ivogun?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf No no no no. But she should have never started out on songs at all, she should have started out on technique, you see. So then I had really a hard time later to acquire the technique again.

Studs Terkel Here's a case in point then of how important the proper teaching is,

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh well, there are so many young people, you know, who asked me how can one become a great singer, and truly they say one must have a lot of luck and protection and guidance. Well, and I say no, there's of course you have to have the talent first and you have to have health with it, because it really needs a lot of stamina, but luck only enters once in one's lifetime, and that is to find the right teacher at the right time when the voice is not yet ruined that is really a matter of luck. Otherwise it is just pure work- [laughs]

Studs Terkel Work and what talent that

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Well sure, [it's not out of?] talent, that's for sure.

Studs Terkel If we made Elisabeth Schwarzkopf the- Elisabeth Schw- of today, of just now, sing a song she remembers a very small girl, how is it? "In Einem

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Kulen [speaking

Studs Terkel Mühlenrad, and Mühlenrad is what?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf A mill wheel. A mill.

Studs Terkel Oh, the wheel.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel The wheel of the windmill.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Not of the windmill-

Studs Terkel Not

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf -of the water mill.

Studs Terkel Oh,

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel Oh, "Mühlenrad." So this, then, is a nature-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes, very much so. As nearly all of the German folk songs are, have something to do with nature.

Studs Terkel So the girl sings of her love who has disappeared, who has vanished, and the only stillness would be with her death-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Mm.

Studs Terkel -from her dying of love, I suppose. Of unrequited, disappeared.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes, of course it is really a man who sings, but you know with the folk songs we make no difference. Everybody can sing them-

Studs Terkel So it shifts very easily.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel It could be the man singing.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes yes.

Studs Terkel The girl-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf With the art songs I really do not like to sing songs which are really meant for men, only there are very few. For instance, the famous "Serenade" by Strauss, which he himself wanted to sung by- have been sung by a soprano. There are very few which are really meant, although they are men's words, being sung by women. But otherwise I'd rather not, you know-

Studs Terkel In an art song, then, it's pretty specific, it's pretty definite, isn't it?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh, very much so.

Studs Terkel Yeah, they can't-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Very much, and thank god they are. And, you know, it's a neverending study, for instance, especially with Orff, who has so much indicated every little comma and every little thing which ought- which means something, and which he has put there every little pause, because he meant it for some reason of expression. And to the study of that is neverending, and you always to still discover things after seeing those songs for years, you still discover things in them that's always so interesting.

Studs Terkel This you- this you find in music, don't you? The rediscovery

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh, it's wonderful,

Studs Terkel And the stronger the work, I suppose, the more dimension

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh yes, sure. Well, I have known Toscanini very well, you know, and even in his old age when he had rehearsals he always had the score near to his eyes, and read it, and tried to read and see whether there was maybe something he had overlooked or so.

Studs Terkel He's finding something new

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes, so does Klemperer, so does all the great conductors who have been living their lives with music, you see?

Studs Terkel It's a wholly different world, though, from the wistful, this very wistful other sad folk song, too, from Ariadne's monologue, and the Orff songs- tomorrow night something wholly different-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Well, that's a big step now.

Studs Terkel

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf The matter, then, of being an actress- Mm-hm. -as well as a musician. Yes. This, then, has led to Madame Schwarzkopf. One of the influences in your life, being what you are, the combination of the two. Yes, I think I was fortunate. I've been always been exposed to very many influences, and I have never really thought that my- I was confined only to one kind of singing, let us say oratorio or lieder, or opera or operetta, something. I've always done all of them sim- simultaneously, and tried to keep my my styles clean and apart. You have to know what you are doing in which moment. You know, when you're singing Bach you have to know how you go from one note to the other, and when you have to sing Strauss you also have to know how you go from one note to the other. And when you sing Verdi, you know, you have to do an Italian portamento and not a German portamento, which are two different things, and so on, many things, I could talk hours and hours on this. And this Ariadne, you are now Ariadne, who some would say that Zerbinetta and Ariadne are two sides of the same, of all women, now wouldn't they? Well, Zerbinetta thinks Ariadne is only a woman, too, and just of her kind, but of course Ariadne is really not. And this monologue is one of the greatest pieces in the opera. It's not loud or anything at all dramatic, but she is wanting to die and she's imagining the realm of the dead, really, as being the supreme goal of her life. And Zerbinetta's trying- Go over into the [unintelligible] without really knowing it, you see, in that then she will be happy. Elisabeth Schwarzkopf on Ariadne's very moving monologue. Of this, not only of this particular portion, but of the role itself, the character Ariadne, Hofmannsthal, who wrote the lyrics, Hofmannsthal wrote in an open letter, and one specifically addressed to Strauss, he said, "The problem was one of faithfulness personified in Ariadne, who can be only one man's wife or love or mourner. Her counterpart is Zerbinetta, who is in her element when dancing from one man to another. Only a miracle of God can redeem Ariadne, and she, taking the God for death abandons herself to Him as one abandons oneself to death. However what to Ariadne appears to be a miracle, it is to Zerbinetta an everyday event. The exchange of a new lover for the old one. And so the two worlds are in the end connected ironically by non-comprehension." Is it that neither one understands the other, would you say, Madame No, well, Zerbinetta really understands Ariadne quite well, but I think it's her kind of view which is rather tinged. So the irony is here throughout. Oh, it's a wonderful thing, yes. After all, there are more sides to women than only one, are there? And then we think, too, of your- of your range, your range as a vocalist it's a natural for- is this a very, it this a very challenging role? Oh yes, it's very difficult. But Strauss is so wonderful to sing, you know, it's very strange that very many singers who can sing Mozart can also sing Strauss. He seems to have, I don't know why it is, I've always been puzzled about this, but the great Strauss singers were also great Mozart singers always. Well, this is true, huh? Yes. You can't think of any one reas-, perhaps, why this would be? I don't know, it seems to- he seems to have a feeling for the women's voices, which is quite extraordinary really. Oh, you mean the great Strauss singers are also great Mozart. You're speaking of the women, not so much- of the women primarily. Oh yeah. Well, think of, well, you should know Claire Dux and Rethberg, two you know very well. A composer for women, would you say this applies, this station so often plays your recording of 'Lullaby' in "Die Kluge," the wise woman- Oh -the king. Yes. Orff, who seems to be a tremendous- Controversical, controversial figure. -controversial figure and experimental. What is it about Orff that excites you, or that moves you? Well, naturally every thing new is basically exciting, although I don't say I like everything new very much. I like Orff to a degree, I must say, because I know my husband, who you know is English, he gets very much carried away by all this great, well, shouting scenes and and and all those [biergarten?] things. And I, for me they are most embarrassing, I must say. They're embarrassing to you. Yes, they are really. I mean, being a German, you know, and knowing this as a kind of side of the Germans which is not one of their best ones, almost- Is it a lustiness? You're not opposed to lustiness? Yes, I find it a bit embarrassing. It's like when, for instance, when you find a group of German students stand in front of the Mona Lisa and the [Paris things?], and they will talk with very loud voices or so, which is also most embarrassing, you see? And so every, I think every nation has their sides which their rather want hidden, if not exploited. For me, I have my- [laughs] I think every people finds in themselves something that they- Yeah, -feel self-conscious about. Yes. So I am about this, but I know that it is a great force, Orff is a wonderful force, you know, and he is a great, a real great man in opera, I think he's the only one we have at the moment, and he has done something new, completely new, and it does give a lot of things to a lot of people. And "Die Kluge" is based on the old legend of the wise woman, the wise girl. Yes, 'eine Märchen,' as we say. You know that we have very many- Fabel. -fairytales in Germany as in every other country, and there is one about the- one just about that story. Would you mind setting the scene for the lullaby that you're singing in this? Oh dear, wait a moment. She has- she wants to take, she's allowed by the king to take one possession with her which she loves most of all, he's driving her away as the unfaithful woman, and she's decided to take the king with her, her husband. So she sings him into sleep and then she just takes him on her back and carries him away. Lullaby to her husband. Yes. ["Der kaiser, der koenig, der bauer, das kinde"?] The emperor, the king, the farmer in the land of Nod, the Latin phrase? They're all as innocent. Innocent. One as the other. Yes. Beautiful theme. That, of course, is a marvelous invention of his, I must say. It's a wonderful thing. It seems that in one manner or another some of the songs that you sing have this universal tug, this universal quality, you see. Very many of the German songs have that, you know, and I'm glad that I happened to be the one which is on that one record. This applies to so many of the folk songs, too, of course in the program at Orchestra Hall tomorrow night, which is primarily Viennese songs, won't they? Yes, yes, an operetta, not songs- Just pieces from the opera- operettas. Yes. And we will hear one of those, and since we started talking about folksongs, you know ["Einem Kunig Grunden"?], 'in the cold ground,' this is a this is definitely a It is absolutely a folksong, everybody knows it, you know. My grandmother used to sing it, everyone's grandmother used to know it. And I'm sure you have many people here whose grandmothers know it still. Even though it's composed songs, [still it's accepted?]. Well, it is a poem by [Agnoff?]. But still it became quite possession of everybody really. Did you remember this one as a small girl? Oh yes, of course. Everyone has fully accepted. Yes. Oh, when you were very little before you studied with Maria Ivogun- Mm-hm. -did you, even though you were interested in the instrument and the piano, was it piano and the viola? Viola, piano, I played the organ, I played even the glockenspiel, you know, in the band, in the school band. Were you always singing? Oh yes, I was singing from when I was quite little, really. But I, well, I really wanted to become some kind of musician, do something with music. So eventually when I had finished school I went to audition whether it was worthwhile to study singing, and they said, "Of course, yes." So. And I did that along with the instruments still, I still tried to. Still Oh yes, because when you start out singing you never know what's going to happen, you see, and actually from those 50 or 55 young people who then auditioned with me, I think there are only two or three who survived as singers. There's a lot more to singing than just learning to sing, you know, which is, of course, the first thing you have to do. My first teacher nearly- she was a wonderful lieder singer, very well known. She used to sing lieder with Brahms at the piano, involved with the piano, and she was marvelous. But she started out on me to sing the "Erlkönig," "Elf-King" full power with all the expression I had, and of course that- I lasted about five bars and then the voice was gone, out, finished, "halt air," as we say. But through the- And I nearly lost my voice with this teacher, although she was really very great. But she said then after two years, "But my child, you're doing something wrong," and of course she couldn't tell me what it This wasn't Ivogun? No no no no. But she should have never started out on songs at all, she should have started out on technique, you see. So then I had really a hard time later to acquire the technique again. Here's a case in point then of how important the proper teaching is, someone Oh well, there are so many young people, you know, who asked me how can one become a great singer, and truly they say one must have a lot of luck and protection and guidance. Well, and I say no, there's of course you have to have the talent first and you have to have health with it, because it really needs a lot of stamina, but luck only enters once in one's lifetime, and that is to find the right teacher at the right time when the voice is not yet ruined that is really a matter of luck. Otherwise it is just pure work- [laughs] Work and what talent that is Well sure, [it's not out of?] talent, that's for sure. If we made Elisabeth Schwarzkopf the- Elisabeth Schw- of today, of just now, sing a song she remembers a very small girl, how is it? "In Einem Kulen [speaking Mühlenrad, and Mühlenrad is what? A mill wheel. A mill. Oh, the wheel. Yes. The wheel of the windmill. Not of the windmill- Not -of the water mill. Oh, Yes. Oh, "Mühlenrad." So this, then, is a nature- Yes, very much so. As nearly all of the German folk songs are, have something to do with nature. So the girl sings of her love who has disappeared, who has vanished, and the only stillness would be with her death- Mm. -from her dying of love, I suppose. Of unrequited, disappeared. Yes, of course it is really a man who sings, but you know with the folk songs we make no difference. Everybody can sing them- So it shifts very easily. Yes. It could be the man singing. Yes yes. The girl- With the art songs I really do not like to sing songs which are really meant for men, only there are very few. For instance, the famous "Serenade" by Strauss, which he himself wanted to sung by- have been sung by a soprano. There are very few which are really meant, although they are men's words, being sung by women. But otherwise I'd rather not, you know- In an art song, then, it's pretty specific, it's pretty definite, isn't it? Oh, very much so. Yeah, they can't- Very much, and thank god they are. And, you know, it's a neverending study, for instance, especially with Orff, who has so much indicated every little comma and every little thing which ought- which means something, and which he has put there every little pause, because he meant it for some reason of expression. And to the study of that is neverending, and you always to still discover things after seeing those songs for years, you still discover things in them that's always so interesting. This you- this you find in music, don't you? The rediscovery of Oh, it's wonderful, it And the stronger the work, I suppose, the more dimension of- Oh yes, sure. Well, I have known Toscanini very well, you know, and even in his old age when he had rehearsals he always had the score near to his eyes, and read it, and tried to read and see whether there was maybe something he had overlooked or so. He's finding something new all Yes, so does Klemperer, so does all the great conductors who have been living their lives with music, you see? It's a wholly different world, though, from the wistful, this very wistful other sad folk song, too, from Ariadne's monologue, and the Orff songs- tomorrow night something wholly different- Well, that's a big step now. -a Yes,

Studs Terkel Are you and Vienna related in a way, even though you are from Berlin, yet

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh, I'm not from Berlin at all. No.

Studs Terkel Poland originally?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf It's now Poland, but it was German when I was born. I was I became Austrian overnight, really, when the Vienna Opera was supposed to go to London and I was still German, and they said, "Well, we have to have you with us, so now you have to be an Austrian." And I must say I've, ever since, never regretted it, and I have been made very well, they like me very much, and I feel very really at home there, I must say now.

Studs Terkel With good reason. You're Viennese by adoption, then.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf I am, very much so. Well, Lotte Lehmann was, too.

Studs Terkel Think- we here, we roman- perhaps we romanticize, we in America who have never been think of the Vienna of another time as being a city, almost a world all by itself.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf It is, it still is, definitely, you know. And when I was a young singer, to go to the Vienna State Opera, be engaged there, that was the ultimate goal in life, really. I didn't want to go any further ever. And I must say even now, you know, being a member of La Scala and God knows what all, coming back to Vienna is really still very special.

Studs Terkel And the operetta in Vienna, operetta is almost almost exclusively associated with Vienna.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh yes, rather, yeah, I should think so. You have got some operettas, some French operettas, of course, which are very-

Studs Terkel Offenbach.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes, but otherwise it is nearly always Vienna.

Studs Terkel And tomorrow night, then, it will be the different, different operettas-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Mm-hm, yes.

Studs Terkel -pieces of different operettas with Franz Allers-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel Franz Allers and the orchestra backing.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel So you'll be then the Viennese lady,

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf [laughs] Well, I hope so.

Studs Terkel Do you find, is your approach to singing this, here is a great deal of gaiety and buoyancy involved, yet here, too, the element of study comes into it. How will-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Oh, quite definitely, it is by no means easy, and to convey gaiety is sometimes much more difficult than to convey other emotions in life, you know? So, of course, when we recorded the many records we did with operetta, it was always- we had great fun, you can't help it, it is just it is just wonderful, and that you are rather all carried away by it, and you allow yourself being well carried away by it than with any other music, really. You have not such strict bounds.

Studs Terkel Here the matter of the infectiousness is there, too, is it not? The audience seems just

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf I hope so.

Studs Terkel Oh, it's a cinch, [you made it?], perhaps, here. You'll be doing some of Lehar tomorrow

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Mm-hm, yes.

Studs Terkel Millöcker. Who is- he was an early operetta writer, wasn't he?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Well, also the first half of the last century he did something still very famous, "Der Bettelstudent" and so is "Die Dubarry," which we're going to play now, but that was, I think, re-edited by by whom? By somebody.

Studs Terkel Ooh-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Mackeben, yes, reworked it-

Studs Terkel Reworked today. This is "Dubarry," then. Here's the girl who made it. Dubarry.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Yes.

Studs Terkel And you s- what's the song she sings here when [speaks

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf "Whatever I start in life I'll do whole and I'll no- go no halfways."

Studs Terkel "So when I have the boldest ideas, I have them properly." She goes whole hog or-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf All the way,

Studs Terkel Here, then, Dubarry definitely was a lady. This, then, Dubarry, Jea- what was her name, [Jean Dubek?], I think, wasn't it a girl, the act- Dubarry?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Well, I wouldn't know.

Studs Terkel This is she, isn't it, and it's pretty easy to see why, too, she was able to succeed as she did, with the buoyancy and the gaiety and and the musicality, too.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Hmm, that is a very nice- I must say, I like it very much.

Studs Terkel Will you be coming to Chicago, Madame Schwarzkopf, on some other occasion?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf No, I will be back in America in the autumn for the usual operas here, but it will be San Francisco with "Der Rosenkavalier," of course, and with "Don Giovanni."

Studs Terkel You've never done Der Marschallin here in Chicago?

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf No-

Studs Terkel No.

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf There is some talk of, you know, there was some talk of it but I don't know what all came of it.

Studs Terkel I hope someday soon-

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf Mm-hm, so do I.

Studs Terkel -we shall see you

Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in Auf

Studs Terkel Auf wiedersehen. Thank you very much.