Delayed Debut

Until last week, Germany's Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was known in the U.S. only by recordings--and by reports from Europe--of her lyric soprano. Last week Manhattan music lovers packed into Town Hall for her U.S. debut, found out firsthand that she is one of the most polished sopranos alive.

Soprano Schwarzkopf chose her favorite form, German lieder, and, from the time she first opened her mouth, never uttered an unpleasant sound. She ranged with practiced ease from a fragile, little-girl voice in such songs as Schubert's Die Vogel to big, dramatic tones in Hugo Wolf's Kennst Du das Land. She could soar high into the flute altitudes with the same rich quality that she used in her cello-like middle register. Before her program was half over, the audience was convinced; by the end, it was shouting its approval.

Critics were almost as enthusiastic as the audience, decided that, with a touch of temperament, she could be the successor to such great lieder singers as Lotte Lehmann and Elisabeth Schumann. "A stunning example of vocal artistry," said the New York Times. "A memorable demonstration," said the Herald Tribune.

Soprano Schwarzkopf's U.S. debut had been delayed until she was 37, and her first visit was limited to a single recital. One reason went back to prewar Germany: in 1935, as a 19-year-old music student in Berlin's Hochschule fur Musik, she became a leader in the Nazi Studentenbund. Thereafter her career blossomed; throughout the war she was a favorite of German audiences. Eventually, after the blanket denazifications of 1946, she returned to the musical stage in Vienna.

In Manhattan last week, Soprano Schwarzkopf was aware that political as well as musical scuttlebutt travels along the international grapevine, and was uneasy about her reception. "I know what people think they know," she said. "Seventy-five percent of the audience is for me; the other 25 percent wishes I were dead." But there was no demonstration, no picket line; nobody asked her about the old days in the Third Reich. Her managers were scheduling her for a return visit to the U.S. next fall for a two-month tour.

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