Leo Slezak (1873-1946) was a Moravian tenor. He made his debut in 1896. In 1901, he joined the Vienna State Opera, soon achieving star status.
According to Wikipedia,'A tall barrel-chested man, Slezak possessed a large and attractive lyric-dramatic voice which enabled him to undertake all but the very heaviest Wagnerian parts such as Siegfried or Tristan. He had a distinctive tonal quality, too, which became markedly darker after his studies with [Jean] de Reszke in 1908. Slezak was a master of mezza-voce singing and he could also deliver haunting head notes. Unfortunately, with time and hard use, his top register developed a strained and unsteady quality when used at full volume, as can be heard on some of his recordings.'
Slezak made many records, and also appeared in a number of films. Here, recorded in the old Berlin Hochschule fur Musik in around August 1928, he sings 'Tom der Reimer.' The German text by Theodor Fontane is based on the old Scottish ballad 'Thomas the Rhymer.' While Tom is lying by a brook, he spies a fair-haired lady on a white horse. She tells him that she is the Queen of the Elves, and if he kisses her he shall be hers for seven years. He is delighted by the prospect, they kiss, and they ride off together.
This is another Slezak disc that well illustrates what the critic Richard Aldrich wrote about the singer in 1909, observing that Slezak 'has an unusual power of giving apt and significant expression to a variety of moods, expression that is gained by subtle means in the moulding of a phrase, the colour of the voice, the suggestion of a dramatic or emotional motive; and his singing of Lieder is vitalised thereby in a fascinating way.'
10 сен 2024
