Paula Lindberg Salomon
Robert Gray
yesterday. Does anyone know of LPs or CDs featuring recordings by the
singer?
Thanks
Robert Gray
kino...@sympatico.ca
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Subject: OBITS: Lough, Czerwenka, Wiener, Lindberg-Salomon, Schorr
To: OPE...@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
PAULA SALOMON-LINDBERG
+ 1897, December 21; Frankenthal (near Mannheim), Germany
+ 2000, April 17
Paula Lindberg studied singing with Julius von Raatz-Brockmann in
Berlin and became one of the most famous German contralto concert
singers in the 1920s. She sang the solo parts in Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony, Bach's Matthaeus-Passion, Handel's Messiah, Mahler's Lied
von der Erde and many more oratorios. On the opera stage, she only
appeared in the role of Erda in Wagner's "Ring des Nibelungen", at
Geneva in 1929 and elsewhere.
After her marriage with the surgeon Albert Salomon, she called
herself Paula Salomon-Lindberg. In Berlin, she was known as a
specialist for Bach's music. She was a friend of Albert Schweitzer,
Albert Einstein and Paul Hindemith.
It was on the height of her career when the Nazis destroyed it:
after the Nazis' seizure of power in 1933, she participated in
the "Kulturbund deutscher Juden", until she had to flee from Germany
to Amsterdam in 1939. In 1940, she was deported to a concentration
camp by German troops. She survived and was able to come back
to Holland.
After the war, Salomon-Lindberg started a new career as a teacher.
>From 1950, she taught elocution at the Salzburg Mozarteum. In 1989,
as a 90-years-old (!), she founded the Salomon-Lindberg singing
competition for 20th century songs which is held every two years
at the Berlin Hochschule der Kuenste. Paula Salomon-Lindberg was
awarded the Bundesverdienstkreuz (the order of the Federal Republic
of Germany) and the Heinrich-Stahl-Preis of the Jewish community
of Berlin.
Paula Salomon-Lindberg passed away at the age of 102.
Her recorded legacy includes the part of Nancy in highlights of
Flotow's "Martha" (on Parlophone), the trio of the Rhine Maidens
in Goetterdaemmerung with Elisabeth Kuehnlein and Alfhild Petzet,
conducted by Max von Schillings (on Parlophone), scenes from
"Carmen" (on Derba) and recordings of Jewish religious music,
some of them together with one of the greatest tenors of the
last century, Joseph Schmidt (on Lukraphon/Parlophone).
Sources: Opernwelt 06/2000; Kutsch/Riemens Saengerlexikon
Andreas Praefcke
Mannheim, Germany
http://welcome.to/AndreasP
... includes list of WEB SITES and 2000/01 SEASONS
of opera companies in Middle Europe ...
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Subject: Re: OBITS: Lough, Czerwenka, Wiener, Lindberg-Salomon, Schorr
To: OPE...@LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Thanks so much to Andreas for his moving and informative post. I can
only add that Paula Salomon-Lindberg had been living in Amsterdam. She
was active up till her death, especially considering her age.
By the way, she's the subject of a lovely film, "Paula Paulinka",
1995, directed by Christine Fischer-Defoy, Caroline Goldie, and
Daniele Schmidt. It premiered at the Berlin film festival, and has
been shown in festivals around the world - and during exhibitions
devoted to the work of her stepdaughter, Charlotte Salomon, a gifted
artist who died in Auschwitz. (The exhibition has toured London,
Boston, Atlanta, and Toronto, among other cities.)
Just found the following submission (dated 27 March 2000, and here
only excerpted) at:
http://www.shamash.org/listarchives/jewish-music/000328
There is one glaring error that I caught (and there are several
typos). The singer Paula Lindberg Salomon did not die in Auschwitz.
Indeed, she is still alive at the age of 103! She is the stepmother of
the artist Charlotte Salomon (died in Auschwitz at age 26), whose huge
series of semiautobiographical paintings "Leben? oder Theater? painted
while in hiding in the south of France in 1941-42 have been making a
huge stir lately in the art world. We had an exhibit of 70+ facsimiles
here at Brandeis last semester (a traveling exhibit that is now in
Atlanta)--and about 450 of the originals will be at the Boston MFA
this summer. Paula Lindberg Salomon and Charlotte's father Albert (an
eminent Berlin physician) had emigrated to Holland and were eventually
rounded up. Indeed they were scheduled to be on the 5/17/43 transport
to Auschwitz from Westerbrook, but managed to escape by a twist of
fate.
This whole story, plus Lindberg's amazing career, is captured in a
1995 documentary Paula Paulinka / ein film von Christine
Fischer-Defoy, Caroline Goldie and Daniela Schmidt, which features the
98-year old Lindberg Salomon lucidly recalling her life for nearly an
hour. It's an amazing film that ought to be better known. (I was
indeed lucky that one of the producers, Caroline Goldie, was in Boston
the night I showed this film, and thus could give a pre- and
post-viewing talk). Lindberg was the leading Bach alto
singer in Germany in the late 20s and early 30s (until Jews were
banned from singing in public in 1933), being the soloist in the
Leipzig Thomanerchor and performing with Furtwaengler, Bruno Walter,
and Erich Kleiber. At the Salomon's home in Berlin, Albert Einstein
(violin) and Albert Schweizer (organ/piano) were frequent guests (as
were Thomas Mann and the whole cadre of German literati of the time),
and the three of them performed the Bach alto arias with violin
obbligato. She also recalls in great detail the life of German/Jewish
musicians from 1934-39, when the only outlet for performance for them
were the various Jewish music organizations.
Sometimes my job as music and art librarian at Brandeis has
fascinating intersections!
Regards,
Darwin
___________________________________________________
Darwin F. Scott office: 781-736-4680
Creative Arts Librarian fax: 781-736-4675
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