Guest
Kurt Baum (1900-1989) was a dramatic tenor who was not averse to making a good story even better through embellishment…which makes it a bit difficult to separate fact from fiction when recounting his life story. Born in Cologne in 1900 (or Brno in 1899, or Prague in 1908, depending on which version of the story Baum was telling) he first made a name for himself as a nationally ranked amateur heavyweight. A member of Max Schmeling’s Sports Club in Cologne, the young boxer (who was also a competitive swimmer and high diver) began studies as a medical student at the University of Prague. He was well on his way to earning his doctorate when fellow students heard him singing at a party. Encouraged by their reaction, Baum dropped out of medical school during his final year and enrolled as a music student at the Academy in Berlin. After less than a year of study, Baum took first prize in a major Viennese singing competition. Most references state that Baum’s stage debut came in Zurich in 1933 in Alexander von Zemlinsky’s new work Der Kreiderkreis. In a 1987 interview, however, Baum referred to having sung the role of Paris in Offenbach’s La Belle Hélène under Max Reinhardt in Berlin in 1929. Regardless of which bit of data is historically accurate, Baum spent the 1930s building his operatic repertoire in the major theaters of Europe. In 1939, the clouds of war began to loom over Central Europe. Now living in Prague, Baum, a Jew, realized Nazi occupation was imminent. With little time to spare, he fled to Switzerland, then France and eventually wound up in Monte Carlo. Not long after, the tenor was invited to America, where he made his U.S. debut in Chicago as Radames in Aïda. Baum’s Met debut as Italian singer in Der Rosenkavalier followed on November 27, 1941. Following the aria “Di rigori armato”, the audience broke into thunderous applause which threatened to stop the show. In fact, Erich Leinsdorf, conducting the opera that evening, was compelled to halt the orchestra and wait until the furor died down before proceeding with the performance. A review of that evening’s performance states, “It was Mr. Baum's excellent singing of the difficult first act serenade with its murderous tessitura, which provided the most pleasant surprise of the evening. It was gratifying to hear this music sung with full-bodied tone which carried to the farthest reaches of the opera house.” Baum, by his own estimates, went on to sing over 2,000 performances (the number was actually closer to 350) of 18 operas, including La Forza del Destino, Aïda, Il Trovatore, Tosca, Manon Lescaut, La Gioconda, Andrea Chénier, Cavalleria Rusticana, Pagliacci, Samson et Dalila, Carmen, Das Rheingold, Lohengrin and Die Meistersinger during his quarter century with the company. Baum’s final operatic role at the Met was as the Drum Major in an English language version of Wozzeck and his last appearance with the company was at the April 16, 1966 farewell gala at the old Met. The tenor, now an American citizen, lived the final two decades of his life in semi-retirement New York. The tenor’s voice was amazingly well preserved and he continued giving sporadic concerts well into the 1980s. Baum passed away on December 27, 1989 at the age of 89 (or, perhaps, 81 or 90). Opinion is divided as to Kurt Baum’s singing and artistry…opera lovers either love him or hate him. His was a gigantic voice of remarkable range and stamina. However, the somewhat nasal, brassy tone is, perhaps, an acquired taste. Baum was a valued member of the Met and was always considered a dependable artist and a good colleague. However, he never really reached the same star status as many of his contemporaries. This may be due, in part, to the fact that he never had a contract with a major recording label. The majority of his surviving recordings were either taken from transcription discs of Met broadcasts or were made for lesser known independent record labels that had minimal distribution. The evidence of his recordings suggests that Kurt Baum was an unfairly underrated artist who deserves to be better remembered.
