Selma Kurz

Selma Kurz (October 15, 1874, Biala, Austrian Silesia - May 10, 1933, Vienna) was an Austrian operatic soprano.

Background

Bielitz and Biala were twin cities in the manner of Buda and Pest, or Minneapolis and St Paul. Today they are a single city known as Bielsko-Biała, in the Polish province of Silesia, 35 miles to the south of Katowice. When Selma Kurz was born they were Austrian cities, located in the so-called Quadrilateral, that is to say, the small remnant of Silesia left to Austria after the bulk of that province was ceded to Prussia following the War of Austrian Succession, in the Eighteenth Century. The future prima donna was actually born in Biala, the poorer of the two towns, to a very humble Jewish family of eleven children. She grew up, however, in the slightly more prosperous neighbouring municipality of Bielitz.

While still a girl she was taken to a convent of nuns, with the hope that she might learn to be a seamstress; the nuns quickly discovered the beauty of her voice, however, and she also often sang in the local synagogue. These circumstances led local people to raise some money so that she could go to Vienna and audition for professor Gänsbacher, a prominent vocal teacher. Gänsbacher did not teach women, but wrote some important letters of recommendation. Little Selma was thus enabled to visit the imposing Schloss Totis, the Viennese residence, "en villéggiature", of the famous patron of the arts, count Nicholas [Miklós] Esterházy de Galántha, who agreed to pay for her lessons with another prominent vocal pedagogue, Johannes Ress.

Once her career was established, Selma Kurz consulted such world-renowned voice teachers as Jean de Reszke in Nice and Mathilde Marchesi in Paris, as well as the soprano Felicie Kaschowska, well-known in Vienna; but she always called herself, above all, a pupil of Ress.

Career

Début

She was first heard in Vienna at a student concert of Ress pupils on March 22, 1895. She got good notices and offers poured from many opera houses, especially the ones in provincial Germany, which were always looking for new talent. She made her début in the title-role of Ambroise Thomas's opera Mignon, at the Stadttheater, Hamburg, on May 12, 1895. She appeared there and at Frankfurt-am-Main for the next four seasons, singing all manner of roles, including Eudoxie in Halévy's La Juive, Elisabeth in Wagner's Tannhäuser and, believe it or not, Carmen.

Vienna

Gustav Mahler, music director of the Vienna Imperial and Royal Court Opera, heard Kurz in Frankfurt towards the end of 1898 and asked her to audition for him at the Habsburg capital. He immediately offered her a fate-sealing contract and she made her début at the theatre that would become her artistic and spiritual home, also as Mignon, on September 3, 1899.

Her success in Vienna would be swift and total, and would last to the end of her musical career, thirty years later. Mahler himself, hearing her perfect trill and wonderfully placed high-notes in the Trovatore Leonora's Act IV aria, suggested that she ought to study the Hochkoloratur repertory, in which she would become the Hofoper's "prima donna assoluta".

The Court Opera director carefully introduced her to this repertoire by letting her sing Rosina (in "The Barber of Seville"), the pages Urbain in "Les Huguenots" and Oscar in "Un ballo in maschera", Juliette and Martha; but she soon moved on to Elvira in Ernani, Lakmé, Konstanze, Gilda, Violetta (in "La traviata") and, last but not least, "Lucia di Lammermoor".

It was Kurz's legendary singing in Mahler's 1903 revival of "Ballo," as well as in Goldmark's "Queen of Sheba", that cemented her immense popularity with the Viennese public. (As Astaroth in "The Queen of Sheba," perhaps her most famous role, she held audiences spellbound with her vocalization of the so-called "Lockruf" or 'Siren Call.') It also led to her being elevated to the position of "Kaiserliche und Königliche Kammersängerin" ('Imperial and Royal Court Singer') at the age of 29. She was often thereafter in attendance of His Holy Apostolic Majesty, Franz Josef I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, always a devoted admirer of her art.

In the year-long Mozart festival performances organized to celebrate the composer's 150th birthday, Kurz sang Fiordiligi in "Così fan tutte" in 1905 and Konstanze in "Die Entführung aus dem Serail" a year later. Also in 1906, on the occasion of a much-acclaimed Caruso gala, she sang Gilda in Rigoletto, with Titta Ruffo in the title role. This was Ruffo's only appearance in Vienna.

Although she had great triumphs in "coloratura" roles, Kurz did not neglect her lyric repertory. Indeed, of the 992 performances she would give at the Vienna Hofoper (later Staatsoper), more than 100 would be devoted to Mimì in Puccini's "La bohème". She also created that composer's "Madama Butterfly" for Vienna (1907) as well as Saffi in Strauss's "Der Zigeunerbaron" (1910).

She sang Tatiana ("Eugene Onegin") and Sophie ("Der Rosenkavalier") in 1911 and, in one of the many high points of her Viennese career, created Zerbinetta in the world première of the second version of Richard Strauss' "Ariadne auf Naxos", on October 4, 1916. She sang Zerbinetta 36 times in Vienna.

In Vienna she sang every imaginable role, from Tchaikovsky's Violanta and Wagner's Elsa (in "Lohengrin") and Sieglinde (in "Die Walküre") to Marguerite in Gounod's "Faust", Massenet's Manon, Frau Fluth in Nicolai's "Merry Wives of Windsor" and Rosalinde in Johann Strauss' "Die Fledermaus". Next to Mimì in Bohème, her most frequently heard roles were Gilda, Violetta and the "Trovatore" Leonora.

Her last performance at the great theatre in the Ringstraße, where so many of her triumphs had been acclaimed by two generations of opera lovers from all over Europe and the world, took place on February 12th, 1927. This appearance, as Rosina in "Barbiere", closed one of the most glorious operatic careers in the twentieth century.

Her very last public appearance occurred in September 1932 at the baptism of Archduke Stefan (1932-1998), son of Archduke Anton and Princess Ileana of Romania. Although already mortally ill, the Imperial and Royal "Kammersängerin" sang Mozart's "Ridente la calma" and the Bach-Gounod "Ave Maria" as a gesture to the baby's grandmother, Queen Marie of Rumania, who had long been a close personal friend. Selma Kurz died nine months later.

Her Career Outside Vienna

Form the outset Selma Kurz was widely required all over Europe and she appeared successfully in both opera and concert at the Grand Opéra in Paris, the Princely Opéra in Monte Carlo, Rome, Salzburg, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Amsterdam, Ostend, Bucharest and Cairo.

In London she was first heard in May 1904 in Rigoletto, with Caruso and Maurice Renaud. She then sang her famous page, Oscar, in Masked Ball, with Giannina Russ, Caruso, Antonio Scotti and Marcel Journet.

The following year she again sang Ballo with Caruso and Mario Sammarco as well as her other favourite page role, Urbain in "Les Huguenots", opposite Emmy Destinn, Caruso, Scotti, Journet and that wonderful American baritone, Clarence Whitehill.She also appeared in Gounod's "Roméo et Juliette" opposite Charles Dalmorès' Romeo. Incredibly she also repeated, in these two seasons of "coloratura" successes, her Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, with Karl Burrian in the title role.

In 1907 she was heard again at Covent Garden, this time in Lucia, with Alessandro Bonci, no less, as Edgardo. She repeated Rigoletto (with Bonci and Sammarco) and Ballo (with Amedeo Bassi) and added, of all things, Catalani's "Loreley", obviously a Bassi vehicle. She was then not heard at the Royal Opera until 1924, when she sang Bohème and Traviata with casts that were only mere shadows of the glory we have been reading about. Her London appearances were very successful, notwithstanding the enmity of the all-powerful Nellie Melba, as entrenched at Covent Garden as Kurz was in Vienna.

Selma Kurz was many times invited to appear in the United States and received several tempting offers from the Metropolitan Opera in New York. None of these managed to induce her so far from Vienna and her family. It was only in 1921 that she finally sailed for the New World, appearing one single time in concert at the New York Hippodrome. This was supposed to be the first concert of a long tour, but she immediately took ill (she had possibly had a heart attack) and the tour was cancelled. She immediately returned to Vienna where she had a long convalescence before she could return to performing with a voice that, all agreed, was never quite the same.

Last Years

In 1910, Selma Kurz married a prominent gynecologist of world-wide reputation, Professor Dr Joseph Halban, who later was knighted by the Emperor, becoming Ritter Joseph von Halban. With him she had two children, Desirée and Georg. "Desi" Halban became a noted concert soprano who, among other things, recorded Mahler's Fourth Symphony with Bruno Walter, an occasion that must have seemed almost like a family reunion! Notwithstanding her always delicate heath, Selma von Halban-Kurz had a notably happy family life in her palatial Vienna home until, in 1929, she became ill with cancer. After a harrowing battle with this disease, which her loving daughter called truly a martyrdom, she died on May 10, 1933, in Vienna, the city that had always loved and cherished her.

It was the municipal authorities that insisted that the great Imperial and Royal "Kammersängerin" be buried in a lovely spot at the Zentralfriedhof, the Central Cemetery where Vienna's great sons and daughters are interred. There she lies, not far from Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms.

Appreciation

Recordings

She left over 150 78rpm "sides". The first were made for Berliner in 1900. These were followed by Zonophone and Gramophone & Typewriter disks, 1901-1906. She made a long and glorious series for HMV (now EMI) in 1907-1914. These are by far the best. Around 1910 she recorded three cylinders for Edison. After the war she recorded for Deutsche Grammophon/Polydor, 1923-24, an interesting series that shows considerable decline in the voice. In 1924-25 she again recorded for HMV, which even made a number of electrical recordings of her singing, including a remarkable version of the "Siren Call" from "The Queen of Sheba", complete with superb trill.

References

*Halban, Desi: Notes to compact discs Pearl GEMM 9171 (London, 1995) and Club "99" 43 (New York, 1989), which include many unique personal reminiscences from the legendary soprano's own daughter, herself a noted concert soprano.
*Semrau, Laura: Notes to compact disc Preiser "Lebendige Vergangenheit" 89504 (Vienna, 2000)
*Karl Josef Kutsch and Leo Riemens, Editors: "Großes Sängerlexikon" Basel, Saur, 2000