Time plays mean tricks on artists. A once favored singer often becomes lost in the plethora of those that follow, their special qualities forgotten. The list of such singers is vast, and most of the time it is only the reissue of their recordings which serves as a reminder.
One such forgotten artist is the contralto/mezzo/soprano Margarete Matzen-auer, who made her debut in 1901 and retired from the operatic stage in 1930. Her reputation at the Metropolitan Opera was one of honor and admiration. She debuted in 1911 and remained a valued artist for 19 seasons.
Born in 1881 to musical Austrian parents and raised in a musically active household, she studied in Graz and Berlin, making her debut in Strasbourg in 1901 as Puck in Weber’s Oberon. After a series of small roles, Matzenauer began to undertake the heavier roles of Ortrude, Azucena, Carmen, and Erda. In 1904 she joined the Munich Court Opera, remaining there until 1911. During this time she not only made guest appearances at Vienna, Hamburg, Stuttgart, and elsewhere, but also began to study dramatic soprano roles, smartly trying them out in the smaller European houses. Her first Brunhilde was in 1907, and in 1910 she sang Carmen opposite Caruso in Munich as well as debuting at Bayreuth as Waltraute, Flosshilde and the Second Norn. In 1911, however, she traveled to America, spending most of the rest of her career in that country.
Matzenauer made her Met debut as Amneris on November 13, 1911 with Destinn, Caruso, Amato, and Toscanini. She was judged an immediate success: an “imposing presence”—a singer with a “superb, rich and very flexible” voice. She quickly broadened her repertoire at that house to include Kundry (Parsifal), Eboli (Don Carlo), Santuzza (Cavalleria), Fides (Le Prophète), Brangaene (Tristan), and Laura (Gioconda). She also sang the Countess in Nozze, Fidelio, the Walküre and Siegfried Brunhildes, and Isolde. Irving Kolodin in The Story of the Metropolitan Opera 1883-1950 summed up her reputation by noting: “In all, Matzenauer came to recognition as a paragon of the Schumann-Heink order, and more versatile.”
Indeed, she became such a treasured and respected artist that when the blacklisting of German artists came into effect during World War I, it was not applied to Matzenauer. She made her operatic farewell on February 17, 1930 in her debut role—Amneris—but continued to sing in provincial opera houses and in concerts for another 10 years. She later taught voice, her most illustrious pupil being the mezzo soprano Blanche Thebom.
Matzenauer married three times. The first time to Ernst Preuse, a Munich-based teacher, then later (for a few years) to the wonderful dramatic tenor, Edoardo Ferrari-Fontana (another forgotten artist). Her final husband was her chauffeur. According to Kutsch and Riemens, after 1930 Matzenauer lived and taught first in New York City and then in Santa Monica, California.
Despite the inherent dramatics of the repertoire she sang, it would seem from recordings that Matzenauer was not an abandoned performer by nature. Her musical points and dramatic emphasis were accomplished through the sheer sound of her massive instrument (and its round core) ringing throughout an opera house’s acoustics.
Matzenauer’s vocal technique was German-based and exhibited typical detriments of that method— an occasionally squeezed top register and a certain hooty manipulation intrinsic in such an instrumental technique. At the same time she knew her voice very well and the equalization of the registers was excellent. It was a large, booming voice especially in her later years, and actually was somewhat similar to the voice of Ernestine Schuman-Heink.
In 1999, Preiser released a CD of 20 selections dating from 1907 to 1926 (Preiser 89183) showing the great versatility at Matzenauer’s command. There are arias and duets from Mignon, Parsifal, Martha, Gotterdammerung, Rheingold, L’Africaine, Samson, Favorita, Gioconda, Carmen, Lucrezia Borgia, Huguenots, Prophète, Don Carlo and Trovatore—virtually a cross section of the entire mezzo-soprano repertoire (with a few forays into soprano territory as well).
There are some wonderful recordings here. (To be honest, not all of Matzenauer’s recordings are as attractive. But Preiser has gathered together some of her best.) The first, an aria from Rienzi (1907), introduces a dark, obviously large but responsive voice. It is a remarkably mature instrument for a twenty-six-year-old. In its youth this was a very wide ranging voice of clarity and great warmth in the lower registers and some brilliant peaks at the top. These highest notes were products of her youth rather than a portion of her natural range, but even so, Matzenauer had complete command of them when she wanted to add a little unsuspected frisson to her interpretations. These top notes included an impressive high D which she interpolates at the end of Mignon’s Styrienne (once a plaything of Matzenauer’s contemporary, coloratura soprano Selma Kurz). Although the high D on Matzenauer’s 1907 recording is a bit squeezed, what is interesting is that she was comfortable enough in this area to sing a cadential trill on high A and then ascend to the high D within a single breath. The Styrienne also demonstrates her considerable florid capabilities, which included a smoother trill than many of her higher-based sisters. The Martha duet with Paul Bender (recorded the same year) is charming—both artists obviously enjoying trading vocal fireworks back and forth. Recorded this closely, however, the combined constriction of their techniques quickly becomes an irritant.
At the last moment, on January 1, 1912, Matzenauer performed Kundry at the Met, replacing an ailing Olive Fremstad. The famous music critic at the time, W. J. Henderson, wrote that she was “heroic in figure, moving with all the majesty of an ancient Oriental queen, large-limbed, magnificent in frame and gesture (who) nevertheless sounded the sweetest depths of sensuous tenderness.” Richard Aldrich (another noted critic of the time) wrote that even though “Matzenauer is so much a contralto, she has in her voice the higher notes to sing…Kundry…without obvious effort.” Interestingly it was Matzenauer’s first Kundry anywhere. Fortunately Preiser includes a Parsifal excerpt Matzenauer recorded two months later. Indeed, it is especially fascinating to compare the high floridity and staccati of the Mignon Styrienne with the round depths of “Ich sah das Kind” (Parsifal) recorded five years later.
One of the most fascinating things about the Preiser disc is one’s ability to trace the gradual settling or maturing of the Matzenauer instrument. In 1907 it was extremely long-ranged—close to three octaves. Although the recording technique at this time can be deceptive, it is obvious that in an opera house this must have been an imposing, solid, imperial sounding voice of dark richness. By the time she was forty-five, the voice had settled into a deep contralto. Deep enough that she preferred “O Don Fatale” (1926) in the lowered key. For those who enjoy deep, subterranean tones, her recording of Fides’ magnificent “O mon Fils” from Meyerbeer’s Le Prophete ends with a remarkable low F sharp.
Erda’s famous warning from Wagner’s Die Gotterdammerung (1909) is an early classic for its sense of repose and rock-solid pitch and vibrato control. Contrasting this is Selika’s Lullaby from Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine recorded a year later. This remains one of my favorites for a number of reasons. Matzenauer rightly sings Selika’s aria subtly and with a softly-rounded timbre. Then, after successfully negotiating the florid measures in the middle of the aria, she surprises the listener by taking the ending up an octave (something rarely done) to high A. The absolute, straight-tone control of her pianissimo high A is an instrumental effect that today would be the envy of many early music sopranos. It is hard to believe that the same voice which sat so squarely in the contralto register for Erda could sing the florid measures and trills of Selika’s music. (One should remember that, although today we are used to mezzi-cum-soprani like Bumbry and Verrett singing this aria—in 1910 this was quite a novelty.) Then contrast this again with Waltraute’s monologue to Brunhilde from Gotterdammerung which again, at the time, was still a rarity on recordings.
Spitfire intensity may not have been a part of Matzenauer’s emotional makeup, but solid, accurate musicianship and a love and respect for her work were. Preiser’s release not only serves to remind us that at one time Margarete Matzenauer was a force to be reckoned with, but also that the care and musicianship that permeated her art represents goals which should be emulated by all singers.
