Safe Passage
Page 25
Ursuleac was Richard Strauss’s favorite soprano and she sang in world premieres of four of his operas. Strauss called her “the truest of the true.” In 1924 Ursuleac heard that renowned conductor Clemens Krauss was assuming directorship of the Frankfurt Opera and needed a soprano. She asked for an audition, but was rejected by Krauss, who was contemptuous of Balkan singers. Ursuleac then submitted her request under a false name. When Krauss discovered her attempt to trick him, he hired her anyway, and thus began a legendary collaboration and a long, mutually devoted marriage. It is said that recordings of Ursuleac do not do justice to the magic of her performances. She was widely regarded as a great musician and actress; she died in Austria at the age of ninety-one.
CLEMENS KRAUSS (Austrian, 1893–1954)
Krauss was born in Vienna to Clementine Krauss, an actress and singer. As a boy, he attended the Vienna Conservatory and began conducting regional orchestras in 1913. He traveled to the United States in 1919, conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic. Among numerous appointments, he was a regular conductor at the Salzburg Festival from 1926 to 1934. In 1935 Krauss became director of the Berlin State Opera. He continued to conduct throughout the Nazi era. After the war, Krauss came under scrutiny from colleagues and the Allied authorities for his close ties to Nazi officials. As a result, he was banned from public performance, but when officials discovered that Krauss had, in fact, aided numerous Jews in their escape from Nazi persecution, the ban was lifted and he resumed conducting the Vienna Philharmonic. He died while on vacation in Mexico in 1954.
A LISTENING GUIDE
To experience the artists and music beloved by Ida Cook, listen to the following recordings on CD.
Amelita Galli-Curci, Lo, Here the Gentle Lark (Pearl, 1999)
Galli-Curci: Prima Voce (Nimbus, 1992)
Bellini: The Supreme Operatic Recordings (Pearl, 2001)
Includes performances by Ezio Pinza, Rosa
Ponselle, Maria Callas and Amelita Galli-Curci, among others.
Rosa Ponselle, Casta Diva (Pearl, 1996)
Rosa Ponselle: The Columbia Acoustic Recordings (Pearl, 1993)
The Golden Years of Ezio Pinza (Pearl, 1992)
Le Nozze di Figaro, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Idi, 2002)
The complete opera, featuring Ezio Pinza as Figaro.
Recorded live in 1937 in Salzburg, Austria.
Lebendige Vergangenheit: Elisabeth Rethberg (Preiser Records, 1994)
Der Rosenkavalier, Richard Strauss (Guild 2004)
Selections from the Strauss opera, featuring soprano
Viorica Ursuleac and conductor Clemens Krauss.
Ariadne auf Naxos, Richard Strauss (Preiser Records, 1996)
The complete opera, featuring soprano Viorica
Ursuleac and conductor Clemens Krauss, recorded in 1935 in Berlin, Germany.
John McCormack: Great Voices of the Twentieth Century (Castle Pulse, 2005)
This compilation of recordings by the great Irish tenor includes “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes.” Ida Cook writes, “Among my own list of great performances…I must place that strange and moving occasion when two hundred Cockneys sang “Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes” in the cellar of a London factory and forgot that overhead bombs were falling.”
Anna Bolena, Gaetano Donizetti (EMI Classics, 1998)
The complete opera featuring soprano Maria Callas in the title role. Recorded live in 1957 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy.
La Traviata, Giuseppe Verdi (EMI Classics, 1997)
The complete opera, featuring Maria Callas as Violetta. Recorded live in 1958 at the San Carlos Theater in Lisbon, Portugal.
Norma, Vincenzo Bellini (EMI Classics, 1998)
The complete opera, featuring Maria Callas in the title role. Recorded in 1960 at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Italy.
FOR FURTHER READING
FICTION
Bel Canto, Ann Patchett (2001)
Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
The Night Watch, Sarah Waters (2006)
The Heat of the Day, Elizabeth Bowen (1948)
The End of the Affair, Graham Greene (1951)
The Girls of Slender Means, Muriel Spark (1963)
Human Voices, Penelope Fitzgerald (1980)
NONFICTION
Opera 101: A Complete Guide to Learning and Loving Opera, Fred Plotkin (1994)
Opera Anecdotes, Ethan Mordden (1985)
The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust, Martin Gilbert (2003)
Conscience & Courage: Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust, Eva Fogelman (1994)
SAFE PASSAGE
ISBN: 978-1-4268-2386-2
Copyright © 2008 by Ida and Louise Cook
Originally published as We Followed Our Stars
Copyright 1950, 1976 by Ida and Louise Cook
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Date
Cook, Ida.
[We followed our stars]
Safe Passage: the remarkable true story of two sisters who rescued Jews from the Nazis/Ida Cook.
p. cm.
"Originally published as We Followed Our Stars"—T.p. verso.
Discography: p.
Includes bibliographical references.
1. Singers—Anecdotes. 2. Cook, Ida. 3. Cook, Louise, 1901-1991. 4. World War, 1939-1945—Jews—Rescue. 5. Righteous Gentiles in the Holocaust—England. I. Title.
ML400.C66 2008
941.084092'2—dc22
[B]
2008027885
® and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with ® are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.
www.eHarlequin.com
Brochure from the Maurice Frost Lecture Agency featuring Ida.
Ida and Tito Gobbi with a copy of his autobiography, which she helped write.
Ida and Louise as young women.
Ida and Louise in their homemade finery.
Ida and Louise with Amelita Galli-Curci.
Ida, Ezio Pinza, Viorica Ursuleac, and Louise.
Amelita Galli-Curci and Homer Samuels.
Clemens Krauss and Viorica Ursuleac.
Ida called this “The picture that started it all.” Clemens Krauss, Mitia Mayer-Lissman, and Viorica Ursuleac outside Covent Garden.
Ezio Pinza outside Covent Garden in 1939.
Louise with Ezio Pinza.
Ida and Louise arriving in New York.
Ida with Maria Callas at Dolphin Square in 1964.
Ida at her typewriter. She wrote more than 100 novels for Mills & Boon under the pen name Mary Burchell.
Louise and Ida with Maria Callas.
Ida with Eammon Andrews when she appeared on “This Is Your Life” in March 1956.