OPERA SINGERS OF THE PAST – GERMAINE LUBIN Germaine (Léontine Angélique) Lubin (1890 – 1979) was a French dramatic soprano, best known for her association with the music of Richard Wagner. She possessed a brilliant voice but her later career was tainted with accusations of Nazi sympathies. In 1912 she made her debut at the Opéra-Comique, singing Antonia in The Tales of Hoffmann. At the Opéra-Comique, Albert Carré gave her the chance to appear in several contemporary operas, including Gabriel Faurés Pénélope (title role). She also sang Charlotte in Jules Massenets Werther and the title role in Gustave Charpentiers Louise, and appeared in the world premiere of Le Pays by Guy Ropartz. In 1913 Lubin married the French poet Paul Géraldy. Their marriage lasted until 1926. (In 1918, Lubin met Marshal Philippe Pétain and they conducted a warm correspondence for a while; Pétain declared a wish to marry her, had she been free. Lubin would remain an ardent admirer of Pétain until his death in 1951.) Lubin made her first appearance at the Paris Opéra in 1915, in Vincent dIndys Le Chant de la cloche, and continued to sing there for nearly 30 years. In addition to standard French works, she also found success in the operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck and Richard Strauss, singing the first French performances of Elektra in 1932. She also created roles for dIndy, Darius Milhaud, and Henri Sauguet (La chartreuse de Parme) and sang the title role in the 1935 revival of Ariane et Barbe-bleue by Dukas. In 1921 Lubin embarked on the series of Wagner roles for which she would be most admired: first Sieglinde in Die Walküre, then Elsa (Lohengrin), and finally Eva (Die Meistersinger), all sung in French at the Opéra. Later came Brünnhilde (Der Ring des Nibelungen (1928) and Kundry (Parsifal) (1938). She performed Ariadne under Strauss in Vienna, also singing Octavian and Agathe to critical enthusiasm, later taking part in the Paris premieres of Der Rosenkavalier in 1927 and Ariadne auf Naxos at the Opéra-Comique in 1943. In 1930 she sang the role of Isolde (Tristan und Isolde) at the Paris Opéra for the first time and met with an ecstatic reception. Her physical beauty —she was tall, slim and blonde— and her strong, even voice made her ideal for the part. She went on to sing it again in Paris in 1938 (this time in German, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler), and in London in 1939 (at the invitation of Sir Thomas Beecham). In July 1939 she became the first Frenchwoman to sing Isolde at Bayreuth (under the baton of Victor de Sabata). At Bayreuth, she established friendships with members of the Wagner family. She was even complimented by Adolf Hitler, who said she was the finest Isolde that he had heard. Lubin hoped to sing also at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, having been recommended to the Mets management by Kirsten Flagstad. Owing, however, to the outbreak of World War II in 1939, she never sang in the United States. After the German occupation of Paris in 1940, Jacques Rouché sought to re-open the Opéra and invited Lubin to return to sing Alceste. This was followed by performances of Fidelio and Der Rosenkavalier, and in 1941 she again sang Isolde, this time with the visiting company of the Staatsoper from Berlin under the direction of Herbert von Karajan. She continued to associate with German acquaintances, and in 1942 she performed at a concert to mark an exhibition by Arno Breker, the sculptor who was closely associated with the Nazi leadership. (She later said that she had agreed to this performance as part of a deal to secure the release of Maurice Franck, the Jewish chef de chant, or music staff/vocal coach, at the Opéra.) These activities brought Germaine Lubin under suspicion of collaboration with the Nazis, and after the Liberation in 1944 she was arrested and imprisoned. At her trial in 1946, she was acquitted of the accusation after a number of testimonials were produced from people she had helped during the war. Nevertheless she was sentenced to dégradation nationale for life (subsequently reduced to five years), confiscation of property, and interdiction de séjour (a form of exile). She found refuge with friends in Italy. For her part, Lubin denied all ties to Nazi Germany, and grew deeply bitter over her treatment at the hands of the French government. In 1950 Germaine Lubin had returned to Paris and sought to resume her career with a recital. Although she met with some sympathy and gave a few further performances, it was a difficult transition, and when in 1953 her son committed suicide she abandoned public performance entirely. For the remainder of her life she became a voice teacher, giving lessons at her home on the Quai Voltaire in Paris.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Sep 2014 07:00:00 +0000