The Voices of the Dresden Opera Ensemble

I.   The Ernst von Schuch era

 

 

Ernst Edler von Schuch  b.1846 Graz, d.1914 Niederlössnitz

Ernst von Schuch was an Austrian conductor who gained a place in the history of opera as GMD of the Dresden Court Opera Dresdner Hofoper (from 1872 to 1914) as a result of his forty-year collaboration with Richard Straussas the composer’s “personal conductor”.
He was on the rostrum to conduct the premieres of the Strauss operas  Feuersnot (1901), Salome (1905), Elektra (1909), and  Der Rosenkavalier (1911).

 

 

 

 

In 1902 the first gramophone recordings were made featuring Dresden opera singers. The recording equipment used was located in a room in Weber’s Hotel, close to the Semperoper.
The first Semperoper singers whose voices were captured that year on shellac discs included the sopranos Irene Abendroth and Minni Nast, baritone Friedrich Plaschke and the darling of the public, Karl Scheidemantel.
Other members of the opera ensemble joined them for some of the recording sessions, such as sopranos Erika Wedekind and Eva von der Osten, tenors Hans Buff-Giessen, Johannes Sembach, August Kiess and Czech-born Karl Burrian and bass Leon Rains, all of whom, along with others, formed the Dresden gramophone pioneers up to 1910. The Rosenkavalier recordings of 1911 form a unique contemporary document of that opera, featuring the female singers who sang at the premiere …

 

→	THE SINGERS DURING THE SCHUCH ERA – RECORDED ON GRAMOPHONE DISC with VIDEO examples

 

---

Thanks

rundfunkschaetze.de extends sincere thanks to Dr. Jens-Uwe Völmecke for his expert support and for making available the historical recordings and documents from his collection