Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Note on source material
- Wagner Family Tree
- Introduction
- 1 A ‘giant Easter egg’. Mausi's home and family
- 2 The noisy child 1924 to 1931
- 3 ‘She should learn to cope with drudgery’. At boarding school 1931 to 1935
- 4 ‘Impudent, endearing and witty’. Friedelind and her aunts 1936 to 1937
- 5 ‘Is it German, what Hitler has done for you?’ 1938 to 1939
- 6 ‘It's precisely because I'm German that I'm not living in Germany’. The farewell 1940
- 7 In England, behind barbed wire 1940 to 1941
- 8 ‘My heart is overflowing’. From Buenos Aires to New York 1941 to 1943
- 9 ‘Only you could still save our inheritance!’ 1943 to 1945
- 10 After the War is over 1946 to 1950
- 11 Friedelind returns 1950 to 1955
- 12 The master classes begin 1956 to 1960
- 13 Heyday of the master classes and their end 1960 to 1966
- 14 Sibling conflict 1967 to 1970
- 15 Schemes and setbacks The 1970s
- 16 ‘A foster mother, a guiding light’ The 1980s
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
8 - ‘My heart is overflowing’. From Buenos Aires to New York 1941 to 1943
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Dedication
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Note on source material
- Wagner Family Tree
- Introduction
- 1 A ‘giant Easter egg’. Mausi's home and family
- 2 The noisy child 1924 to 1931
- 3 ‘She should learn to cope with drudgery’. At boarding school 1931 to 1935
- 4 ‘Impudent, endearing and witty’. Friedelind and her aunts 1936 to 1937
- 5 ‘Is it German, what Hitler has done for you?’ 1938 to 1939
- 6 ‘It's precisely because I'm German that I'm not living in Germany’. The farewell 1940
- 7 In England, behind barbed wire 1940 to 1941
- 8 ‘My heart is overflowing’. From Buenos Aires to New York 1941 to 1943
- 9 ‘Only you could still save our inheritance!’ 1943 to 1945
- 10 After the War is over 1946 to 1950
- 11 Friedelind returns 1950 to 1955
- 12 The master classes begin 1956 to 1960
- 13 Heyday of the master classes and their end 1960 to 1966
- 14 Sibling conflict 1967 to 1970
- 15 Schemes and setbacks The 1970s
- 16 ‘A foster mother, a guiding light’ The 1980s
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The equator was crossed on 1 March; on 5 March the Andalucia Star reached harbour in Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Four days later it arrived in Montevideo and one day after that it reached its goal, Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina. The journey had taken 23 days. The ship had come across just one submarine and had been able to outrun it. After her experiences in the Blitz in London, nothing could perturb Friedelind any more. She was met at the landing stage by Erich Engel and his wife, the soprano Editha Fleischer. Engel was an Austrian conductor who had lived in Buenos Aires for several years already and who ran the opera at the Teatro Colón, working closely with Fritz Busch and Erich Kleiber. Fleischer had sung at the New York Met more than 400 times between 1926 and 1936, and now taught in Argentina.
Engel surprised Friedelind with the good news that Toscanini would conduct in Buenos Aires just three months later. Although Toscanini had claimed to the British authorities that she would be employed as a theatre director in the city, the idea had long been dropped after Friedelind had herself expressed doubts:
How could I possibly be efficient doing work on a stage I have never seen in my life – in a country where I have never been – facing artists and a chorus that are new to me and of whom I know nothing at all – finding myself in the midst of a season that is already in full swing – where I cannot change or propose anything according to my own wishes? I would have a few week's time to give a finishing touch to a performance that is someone else's - and all this should be signed with my name which of course would be a very nice advertisement for the opera, but never for me.
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- Information
- Friedelind WagnerRichard Wagner's Rebellious Granddaughter, pp. 129 - 152Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2013