Joseph Schmidt

To hear Joseph Schmidt's singing today, on any of the 80-plus songs and arias that he left behind to posterity, is to encounter one of the most glorious and tragic stories in the annals of music. Schmidt, one of the most celebrated tenors of the 1920s and 1930s, once dubbed "the Jewish Caruso," captivated audiences in Germany and throughout Europe with his singing for a decade -- he was unable to appear on the operatic stage, however, as a result of his diminutive stature, not even five feet in height (he was called "the pocket Caruso" on one American tour). Worse still, from the standpoint of pure survival, Schmidt had the misfortune to be a German national in the era of the Nazis' rise to power, and although he was able to appear in recitals with his friend and colleague Richard Tauber, it was impossible for Schmidt to pursue a life or career in Germany. He fled across Europe, through Belgium and then to France and finally to Switzerland, where his health began to fail, and Schmidt died in an internment camp, one of many victims of that "neutral" country's policies toward Jewish refugees. Joseph Schmidt was one of three children of Wolf and Sarah Schmidt, living in a community that included Poles, Romanians, Ukrainians, Germans, and Gypsies in its ranks. He studied languages as a teenager living in Cernowitz, becoming fluent in Romanian, German, French, and Hebrew, and he sang in the local synogogue. It was there that his voice began to show serious promise, and as a teenager he sang operatic arias in addition to Jewish folk songs. He studied voice in Berlin, interrupted by three years of military service in the late 1920s, and upon his discharge, Schmidt began a career as a cantor in the synagogue in Cernowitz. His work there led to a performance in Berlin, which,...