Richard Tauber

Born Ernst Seifert on 16 May 1891 in Linz, Austria-Hungary, Tauber died in London, England, on 8 January 1948. He had already built a major reputation across Europe in opera and operetta when he relocated to England in 1933 amid the rise of the Nazis. His greatest Viennese triumph came with Das Land Des Lächelns in 1929, where he performed Franz Lehár’s “Das Ist Mein Ganzes Herz.” That same production established his standing in London. The English version, The Land Of Smiles, opened in 1931 and introduced the hit “You Are My Heart’s Delight,” which quickly won him a devoted new public. His rich yet light lyric tenor proved ideal for operetta and musical comedy, drawing enormous audiences. London engagements followed, among them Paganini in 1937 and Blossom Time in 1942; he also wrote the score for and starred in Old Chelsea in 1943, contributing the hit song “My Heart And I.” Beyond the West End he toured the provinces both in productions and as a solo performer, and he appeared on Broadway in Yours Is My Heart in 1946, an adaptation of The Land Of Smiles.

Films made in Germany continued once he reached England, several of them adaptations of his stage successes. The German titles comprised Das Lockende Ziel and Das Land Des Lächelns, both from 1930, Die Große Attraktion in 1931, and Melodie Der Liebe in 1932. In England he appeared in Blossom Time and April Romance, released together in 1934, followed by Heart’s Desire in 1935 and Land Without Music (released in the United States as Forbidden Music) in 1936, with a score by Oscar Straus and Jimmy Durante supporting Tauber’s lead. Pagliacci, issued in America as A Clown Must Laugh in 1937, drew on Ruggiero Leoncavallo’s opera. As the war concluded he filmed Waltz Time in 1945, whose plot echoed Johann Strauss the Younger’s Die Fledermaus without acknowledgment; the cast also featured the duo Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth. His final screen role came in The Lisbon Story in 1946, drawn from a London stage production that contained the popular number “Pedro The Fisherman.” Tauber recorded the song even though he did not perform it on screen. Neither his stage nor film acting was considered strong, and his appearance seldom matched the youthful heroes the scripts described. When he sang, however, such shortcomings became irrelevant.