|
The German soprano, Lotte Leonard, studied at the Stern'schen Konservatorium in Berlin; her teachers were
Anna Wüllner, Jeannette Grumbacher de Jong and for singing Therese Schnabel.
Lotte Leonard began her career in 1910 and had soon great successes as concert soprano. She was estimated as an outstanding J.S. Bach and George Frideric Handel interpreter; on the other hand she performed contemporary music. Her great importance however probably was in the area of Lieder singing. The base of her activity was in Berlin. Expanded concert tours led her to Holland and Belgium, to Switzerland, France and Italy, to Sweden and Poland. From 1922 to 1930 she took part in various J.S. Bach and G.F. Handel festivals in Germany. Since 1916 she worked as a teacher at the Bernuth-Konservatorium in Berlin. Since 1918 she sang often solo parts in the famous concerts of the Berliner Philharmonischer Chor under Siegfried Ochs. She also made successful concert tours to North and South America. Thus she gave a concert cycle "the German Lied" in Buenos Aires. In 1927 she sang at the May Festival of Cincinnati, in 1928 at Milan's La Scala in the Concerti di Primavera the soprano solo Israel in Egypt by G.F. Handel, in 1931 at the Festival of Salzburg the soprano solo in Missa Solemnis by L.v. Beethoven. On the stage she did not appear.
In 1933 Lotte Leonard, together with her husband, the music researcher and writer Heinrich Levy (?1940), left Germany to live in Paris and to serve from 1933 to 1940 as Professor at the Conservatoire National de Paris. In 1940, when France was occupied by German troops, she fled to North America, where she worked as a teacher at the Juilliard School of Music and at the Mannes College in New York. She spent the evening of her life in Israel. She was admired for her expressive ability, secure delivery and stylistic interpretation.
Recordings: on Homochord, Ultraphon and Odeon. On Pearl 9th Symphony of L.v. Beethoven under Oskar Fried (1928). |
