Arthur Endreze – An
American in Paris
by Darren Seacliffe
America has
long been known to be a fertile breeding ground for opera singers. From Lilian
Nordica at the close of the nineteenth century to today’s ‘’Rossinian’’ couple,
Lawrence Brownlee and Ms Joyce DiDonato, American opera singers have attained
resounding success in almost every genre of opera from baroque to modern. There
is no vocal fach or category of singer which does not have an American among
its leading representatives. Since the dawn of the record age, America has been
blessed with world-class female opera singers. Three of the singers who took
part in the legendary ‘Night of the Seven Stars’ Met performance of Les
Huguenots were American (Lilian Nordica, Emma Eames and Edyth Walker). However,
a considerable period of time would elapse before America produced its first
great male opera singers. One of them
was the legendary American baritone Lawrence Tibbett, widely considered to be
the first son of America to break into the musical circuit of opera hitherto
dominated by Europeans and to rise to the top of his profession. I can still
remember how enthusiastic and excited the author of The American Opera Singer
was in recounting the Met performance which gave Tibbett his big break, the
Falstaff where Tibbett’s Ford stole the show from Scotti’s Falstaff. On the
other hand, a debut by another American son across the Atlantic some time later,
no less significant than Tibbett’s, was sadly given not as much attention. The name of
this son of America was Arthur Endres Kraeckmann, better known by his stage
name, Arthur Endreze, of whom I will speak in this article today.
Under Jean de
Reszke’s tutelage, Arthur Endreze would eventually become the baritone who
continues to be regarded by the French as one of their greatest baritones from
the inter-war era. His recordings of extracts from the standard French baritone
roles like Valentin and Escamillo have a degree of authority and authenticity
which is not to be taken lightly. Even though I personally feel that Valentin
and Escamillo weren’t the French baritone roles that showed him to his greatest
advantage, being the French baritone roles my readers would most likely be
familiar with, I thought it would be best if I used Endreze’s extracts from
Faust and Carmen as an introduction to his art.
(For Faust,
where Endreze sings Valentin, I have chosen his rendition of ‘Mort de Valentin’
[Death of Valentin). Don’t you think the way Endreze’s Valentin sings his last
words to Marguerite makes you sympathize with his character? Endreze truly
sounds as though his character is in his death throes towards the end of the
aria. It was Endreze’s gift for tragedy that makes this performance literally
tug at your heartstrings.)
(For Carmen,
instead of the better known Toreador Song, I have selected the duet between
Escamillo and Don Jose ‘’Je suis Escamillo’’, where Endreze is partnered by the
great Corsican tenor Gaston Micheletti. Endreze’s Escamillo is noble and
refined but it lacks the flamboyance we’re so used to seeing in
characterizations by many other great baritones. It’s a pity Endreze is a bit
too reserved as Escamillo. If he was more emotionally involved, given Micheletti’s
tastefully exciting Don José, this would have been a performance for
posterity.)
In an era
where refinement was commonplace among French singers, nobility and elegance
alone would not be enough for Arthur Endreze to rise above his colleagues.
There must have been something more. What was it? For me, the qualities which
made Arthur Endreze different from other leading French baritones of his time,
like Vanni-Marcoux and Hector Dufranne, were his beautiful, warm and rich voice
(Vanni-Marcoux’s voice sounds ordinary in comparison), his penchant for high
tragedy and his emotional and dramatic sensitivity to the underlying nature of
the operas he sang. (Dufranne can be moving but his singing doesn’t leave the
same amount of impact Endreze does, probably because of his lighter voice). In
addition, through the training Arthur Endreze received under Jean de Reszke, it
is highly probable that Endreze would have been schooled in the way to perform
French operas according to the way their composers intended them to be sung.
(Jean de Reszke premiered Massenet’s Le Cid and it is believed he may have
taught Endreze to sing the role of Hamlet and Nelusko [L’Africaine] like his
friend, Jean-Baptiste Faure, who created these roles.) To showcase
these attributes of Arthur Endreze’s singing, I have chosen 3 recordings from
the French repertoire so central to his career.
(Arthur
Endreze’s rendition of Athanael’s aria from Massenet’s Thais: ‘’Voila donc la
terrible cite’’. Not only does he sing the aria with earth-shaking gravity, he
makes it sound so beautiful as well. A first-class performance which few
baritones can match.
(Arthur
Endreze and Yvonne Gall sing the Duo de l’Oasis from Massenet’s Thais. Endreze
is very much the religious fanatic besotted with his new follower. There’s
nothing much I can say after hearing this poetically beautiful duet.)
(Arthur
Endreze sings Nelusko’s aria ‘’Fille des Rois’’ from Meyerbeer’s L’Africaine.
Unlike the role of Athanael, he seems not to have performed the role on stage
but it is believed that he may have studied this role with his teacher de
Reskze. It is commendable that Endreze was not only able to sing the aria at a
time when this opera was no longer in the standard French repertoire, but he
was also able to execute the trills with reasonable flexibility and smoothness.
I believe that such technical skill was rare for singers of that period.)
Besides
giving Arthur Endreze vocal instruction, Jean de Reszke introduced his pupil to
one of the leading musical personages of the time, Reynaldo Hahn, who was then
in charge of the opera season at Cannes. It was Hahn who would arrange for
Endreze’s debut as an opera singer, in the role of Escamillo at Cannes on 18
December 1925. During his time at Cannes, Arthur Endreze’s repertoire expanded
considerably, to include roles like Valentin, the High Priest in Samson et
Dalila, Tonio (Pagliacci), Alfio (Cavalleria), Rigoletto, Scarpia, Athanael,
d’Orbel (the French version of Germont), Nilakantha (Lakme) and Hamlet.
As a star
baritone of the Paris Opéra, Arthur Endreze was given the honor of being included
in the cast of world premieres like Milhaud’s Maximilien in 1932 and Christophe
Colombe in 1936 as well as Honegger’s and Ibert’s L’Aiglon in 1937 and
Sauguet’s La Chartreuse de Parme in 1939. He would also have the chance to sing
alongside several legendary guest opera singers of the time like Frida Leider,
Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior. At the same time, there were operas
which were revived to be star vehicles for him; operas such as Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet. Arthur Endreze would
be the last important baritone to have the role of Hamlet in his active
repertoire. For anyone who wishes to have an idea of how big Endreze was as an
opera star, here are 2 excerpts from 2 of Endreze’s star’s vehicles, Hamlet and
Guercoeur. After hearing the 2 performances below, I think the reader can
understand how critical Endreze’s championship was for the survival of these
operas in the repertoire.
(Arthur
Endreze sings the most famous excerpt from Ambroise Thomas’ Hamlet, the Drinking
Song. It is sad that unlike the other great Shakespearian tragedies, Otello and
Macbeth, Hamlet has not been set to music by a composer capable of realizing
its dramatic potential. By the time Hamlet came into Ambroise Thomas’ hands,
the librettist had reduced Hamlet from one of Shakespeare’s 4 great tragedies
to the level of a singer’s vehicle that did not have much to its credit. The
only redeeming features as far as I can see are Ophelia’s coloratura displays
and Hamlet’s arias. )
(‘’Etre ou ne
pas etre’’ from Thomas’ Hamlet and the better of the 2 extracts Arthur Endreze
recorded from Magnard’s Guercoeur, ‘’Ou suis-je’’. In my humble opinion, even
when Arthur Endreze is placing all his artistic and vocal gifts at the disposal
of these 2 arias, there is little more he can do other than to make these 2
arias acceptably interesting to the listener. If placed into the hands of a
less talented baritone, you can imagine how the arias would turn out, let alone
the operas where they come from. It’s hardly surprising that Guercoeur and
Hamlet both dropped out of the repertoire after Endreze’s retirement. Even
though Hamlet has been revived recently, its status is no longer what it used
to be in Endreze’s time. Now, it’s more of a soprano showpiece than a baritone
showpiece. If it were a baritone showpiece, I’m sure Hvorostovsky would have
sung the role by now, which I doubt he has.)
If you look
at Arthur Endreze’s repertoire, a large part of it would be made up of French
opera roles, something natural for a French baritone like him. Other parts of
his repertoire were dedicated to Italian operas by Verdi and the verismo
composers like Leoncavallo, Mascagni and Puccini and German operas by Wagner.
Though Arthur Endreze did sing Wagner in German when he was partnering guest
singers like Flagstad, Leider and Melchior, most of the time he sang the operas
of Wagner and the above-mentioned Italian composers in French. After all,
during his time, it was the norm for opera houses in Europe to stage operas in
their native language rather than the original. (This practice would continue
till as late as the early 1960s, possibly even later in Russia and Eastern
Europe). I foresee that some opera connoisseurs may not take kindly to
listening to opera sung in languages other than their original so they may
underestimate Endreze’s work in these operas. In response, let me point out
that language does not bear any relation to the quality of a performance. There
are great singers of the past who have left recordings of Italian opera arias
in French, German and Russian that measure up to the standards set by their
Italian counterparts in every aspect. The same applies to Wagner. The French,
German, Italian and Russian singers of the past had styles of singing unique to
their respective countries. Thus, an opera performance in French can sound
quite different from the same opera in German, Italian and or Russian since the
differences in the schools of singing of these countries result in variations
in the way these operas are interpreted and sung. If you don’t believe me, try
a popular opera you know well like Carmen or Traviata in the original, German
and Russian. To the untrained ear, they may appear to sound the same but to the
trained ear; there are some slight differences which can be perceived. As a result, one piece of music like
Rigoletto or Tosca can take on so many different incarnations. It’s indeed a
great loss to the genre that internationalization has taken all this away.
There are 3
extracts which I have selected to exhibit Arthur Endreze’s work in Verdi:
(Arthur
Endreze sings the classic baritone aria ‘Di provenza il mar’ from La Traviata
in French. Based on my experiences in listening to his recordings, I find that
roles which were father-figures were those he was best at. There is a certain
amount of authority in his singing which lends power to his renditions of
extracts from such roles. Together with his beautiful and rich voice, such
power’s bound to leave its mark on the listener.)
(Simply put, this
was one of Arthur Endreze’s most beautiful and noblest moments on record.
Arthur Endreze sings ‘Eri tu’ from Verdi’s Un Ballo in Maschera in French with
a refinement most baritones would envy.)
Arthur
Endreze sings ‘’Pari siamo’’ in French from Verdi’s Rigoletto. Endreze sings
well here, but I have to say that many great French baritones sing it as well. The competition of singers such as Michel Dens, Ernest Blanc, Robert Massard, and others is formidable!
To oblige any
opera connoisseurs who truly love the ‘’blood-and-guts’’ style of verismo, here
are 2 extracts of Arthur Endreze’s work for them to hear him try his hand at
this genre:
(Arthur
Endreze sings ‘Il cavallo scalpita’ in French from Mascagni’s Cavalleria
Rusticana. In most cases, he doesn’t give me much excitement but I
have to confess that this is one surprising exception. Perhaps the invigorating
music of the cabaletta might have roused Endreze into giving such a thrilling
performance.)
(I think this
scene is Scarpia’s Death Scene from Tosca. It sounds like it. I can make out
Scarpia’s last moments. Scarpia was one of Arthur Endreze’s most acclaimed
roles. Here, you have one of the best French sopranos of all time, the great
singing actress, Ninon Vallin, facing off with Arthur Endreze in this duet. By
all accounts, this is definitely worth listening to.)
(For anybody
who wants to hear what Endreze’s teacher was like, if he or she’s okay with
straining his or her ears a bit, here is a video:
During the
course of his career, Endreze spent a considerable amount of time singing
Wagner Heldenbariton roles like Telramund (Lohengrin), of Kurwenal (Tristan und
Isolde). Though it’s a great loss that he did not commit anything from these 2
Wagner operas to disc, we are very lucky that he made these recordings which I
shall be sharing below:
(Arthur
Endreze sings Wotan’s Farewell from Wagner’s Die Walkure in French. This is
truly a magnificent performance, don’t you think? Endreze’s formidable Wotan
not only radiates authority but also expresses his love for his daughter
Brunnhilde with such poetic beauty. I reckon that the quality of this
performance is more than equal to the recording made by his predecessor Marcel
Journet.)
(Arthur
Endreze sings the Dutchman’s monologue, ‘’Die Frist ist Um’ from Wagner’s Der
Fliegende Hollander, in French. If you think Endreze can’t give a performance
better than the Wotan’s Farewell just now, this video will prove you wrong. Of
all Endreze’s recordings, this was the one I liked most. Even though Endreze
may have been singing the Dutchman’s monologue in French, there are few singers
I have heard who have been able to convey the tragedy in the character as strongly
as he did here. Rather than sounding remorseful and world-weary like Friedrich
Schorr, Endreze’s Dutchman sounds as though the doom awaiting him is his way of
doing penance for his sins. It’s a waste that Arthur Endreze never recorded any
more extracts from this opera. This is one of the best examples of the aria you
can find.)
Arthur Endreze’s
career at the Paris Opéra in the 1930s was a relatively smooth one, despite a period of time when he ran into
personal difficulties that forced him to take a leave of absence from the stage
from late 1933 to early 1934. It has been said that this could have been a
nervous breakdown on the part of the singer, which could possibly have been
connected to the death of his first wife. Reviews of the singer’s performances
after his comeback to the stage show that his musical talents and dramatic
gifts were not impaired in any way by this tragedy. This is proven by the
Wagner recordings Endreze made after his return.
Despite the
outbreak of World War II, Arthur Endreze continued to sing at the Paris Opera
as before, until between late 1942 and 1943 when he was apprehended by the
Gestapo or by French policemen obeying their commands. As an enemy alien due to
Germany’s ongoing war against the United States, Endreze was eventually
confined at Compiegne. In early 1944, Endreze would find himself deported to
America, where he would stay till 1945.
By the time
Arthur Endreze returned to France in 1945, he was already past 50. It was only
a matter of time before the singer decided to call time on his thriving career.
On 20 October 1946, Arthur Endreze gave his swan-song at the Palais Garnier,
which had hosted several of his past successes, in Mehul’s Joseph as Jacob. Not
long after, Arthur Endreze would give his last performance of a complete opera
on 27 June 1947, when he sang Jorgen in the opera Le Pays by Guy Ropartz. After
that, Endreze returned to the United
States where he had a teaching stint at the University of Kansas from 1948 to
1950. In 1950, he decided to return to Paris where he carried on with his
activities as a vocal pedagogue. It was only after the passing of his second
wife in 1973 that Endreze would decide to return to America for good. Two years
later, on 15 April 1975, in Chicago, the legendary French baritone would
breathe his last.