Imported from the USA: Geraldine Farrar

American soprano opera singer and film actress Geraldine Farrar (1882-1967) was noted for her glamorous beauty, acting ability, and the timbre of her voice. Barely 20, she was already the toast of Berlin. Later at the Met in New York, she had a large following among young women, nicknamed ‘Gerry-flappers’. Farrar also starred in over a dozen silent films from 1915 to 1920. She was married to and co-starred with Dutch matinee idol Lou Tellegen.


German postcard by G.G. & Co., no. 2419.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. 251. Photo: Zander und Labisch. Geraldine Farrar as Angela in 'Le Domino Noir' (1905).


French postcard.


German postcard by PH, no. 4116/1. Geraldine Farrar as Marguerite in Charles Gounod's opera Faust.


Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 936. Photo: Skandinavisk Film-Central, Stockholm.

Gerry-flappers

Alice Geraldine Farrar was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, in 1882. She was the daughter of baseball player Sidney Farrar, and his wife, Henrietta Barnes. At 5 she began studying music in Boston and by 14 was giving recitals. Later she studied voice with the American soprano Emma Thursby in New York City, in Paris, and finally with the Italian baritone Francesco Graziani in Berlin.

In 1901, Farrar created a sensation at the Berlin Hofoper with her debut as Marguerite in Charles Gounod's 'Faust'. She remained with the company for three years, while she continued her studies with legendary Wagnerian soprano Lilli Lehmann. Farrar appeared in the title roles of Ambroise Thomas' 'Mignon' and Jules Massenet's 'Manon', as well as Juliette in Charles Gounod's 'Roméo et Juliette'.

Her admirers in Berlin included Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany, with whom she is believed to have had a relationship beginning in 1903. This Berlin period was interspersed with three seasons with the Monte Carlo Opera. Highlights were Pietro Mascagni's 'Amica' (1905), and Giuseppe Verdi's 'Rigoletto' (1906) in which she appeared with Enrico Caruso. That year, she debuted at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 'Romeo et Juliette' (1906). The success placed her on a plateau with Caruso as a box-office magnet. The next year, she got raves for her performance as Cio-Cio-San in the Metropolitan premiere of Giacomo Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly' in 1907.

Farrar remained a company member until her retirement in 1922, singing 29 roles there in 672 performances. She developed a large following, especially among New York's young female opera-goers, known as Gerry-flappers. Farrar created the title roles in Puccini's 'Suor Angelica' (1918), Umberto Giordano's 'Madame Sans-Gêne' (1915), as well as the Goosegirl in Engelbert Humperdinck's 'Königskinder' (1910), for which Farrar trained her own flock of geese. According to a New York Tribune review of the first performance, "at the close of the opera, Miss Farrar caused 'much amusement' by appearing before the curtain with a live goose under her arm."

Her biographer Elizabeth Nash adds: “Unlike most of the famous bel canto singers of the past who sacrificed dramatic action to tonal perfection, she was more interested in the emotional than in the purely lyrical aspects of her roles.”


German postcard by K.V.i.B., Dess, no. 1016.


German postcard by K.V.i.B. 12. Dess., no. 4017.


Vintage postcard, no. 58. Photo: Geraldine Farrar as Elsa in Lohengrin. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by G.G. & Co., no. 2414. Photo: publicity still for Mignon. Collection: Didier Hanson.


French postcard. Editor unknown. Postcard sent in 1907. Geraldine Farrar in the opera Mignon.


French postcard.

Cecil B. De Mille

Geraldine Farrar recorded extensively for the Victor Talking Machine Company and was often featured prominently in that firm's advertisements. She was one of the first performers to make a radio broadcast, in a 1907 publicity event singing over Lee De Forest's experimental AM radio transmitter in New York City.

She also starred in more than a dozen silent films from 1915 to 1920, filmed between opera seasons. Farrar debuted with the title role in Cecil B. De Mille's Carmen (1915), based on the novella Carmen by Prosper Mérimée. For her role as the seductive gipsy girl, she was extensively praised. For her performance, she came in fourth in the 1916 Screen Masterpiece contest held by Motion Picture Magazine, ahead of any other actress. DeMille directed her next in the silent romantic drama Temptation (Cecil B. DeMille, 1915), also with Theodore Roberts, and in the drama Maria Rosa (Cecil B. DeMille, 1916) with Wallace Reid.

Another notable screen role was as Joan of Arc in Joan the Woman (1917). This was Cecil DeMille's first historical drama. The screenplay is based on Friedrich Schiller's 1801 play 'Die Jungfrau von Orleans' (The Maid of Orleans). She next played the daughter of an Aztec king in the silent romance The Woman God Forgot (Cecil B. DeMille, 1917). In the film, she falls in love with a Spanish captain (Wallace Reid) whose army has come to convert the Aztecs to Christianity. Her last film for Paramount Pictures was the romance The Devil-Stone (Cecil B. DeMille, 1917), again with Wallace Reid. The film had sequences filmed in the Handschiegl Color Process, but only two of six reels are known to survive.

For Goldwyn Pictures, she appeared in such films as The Turn of the Wheel (Reginald Barker, 1918) with Herbert Rawlinson and Percy Marmont, the Western The Hell Cat (Reginald Barker, 1918), Shadows (Reginald Barker, 1918) and the melodrama The Stronger Vow (Reginald Barker, 1919), the latter three with Milton Sills. All four films are considered lost.

She co-starred with her husband Lou Tellegen in the dramas The World and Its Woman (Frank Lloyd, 1919), Flame of the Desert (Reginald Barker, 1919), and The Woman and the Puppet (Reginald Barker, 1920). Her final film was the silent drama The Riddle: Woman (Edward José, 1920), in which her co-star was Montagu Love.


Spanish card by La Novela Semanal Cinematográfica, no. 109.


French postcard by Etoile, Paris, no. 195. Photo: Reutlinger.


German postcard by GG Cie, no. 5050. Geraldine Farrar as Madam Butterfly.


German postcard by Verlag Herm. Leiser, Berlin, no. 6530. Photo: H. Manuel. Geraldine Farrar in the opera 'Tosca'.


French postcard. Publicity for Vins Désiles. Photo SIP, Boyer. G. Farrar de l'Opéra Impéraile de Berlin. Caption: J'ai plaisir à recommander l'excellent Vin Désiles (I enjoy recommending the excellent Vin Désiles).

A messy and very public divorce

Geraldine Farrar had a seven-year love affair with the Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini. It was rumoured that she gave him an ultimatum to choose either her or his wife and children in Italy. It resulted in Toscanini's abrupt resignation as principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in 1915. Farrar was close friends with the star tenor Enrico Caruso and there has been speculation that they too had a love affair, but no conclusive evidence has surfaced.

In 1916, she married Dutch film actor Lou Tellegen. Their marriage was the source of considerable scandal, and it ended, as a result of her husband's numerous affairs, in a messy and very public divorce in 1923. The circumstances of the divorce were brought again to public recollection by Tellegen's bizarre 1934 suicide in Hollywood. When told of her ex-husband's death, she replied "Why should that interest me?"

Farrar retired from opera in 1922 at the age of 40. Her final performance was as Ruggero Leoncavallo's Zazà. By this stage, her voice was in premature decline due to overwork. Farrar quickly transitioned into concert recitals and was signed within several weeks of announcing her opera retirement to an appearance at Hershey Park on Memorial Day 1922.

She continued to make recordings and give recitals throughout the 1920s and was briefly the intermission commentator for the Metropolitan Opera radio broadcasts during the 1934–1935 season. Her rather bizarre autobiography, Such Sweet Compulsion (1938), was written in alternating chapters purporting to be her own words and those of her mother, with Mrs. Farrar rather floridly recounting her daughter's many accomplishments.

In 1967, Geraldine Farrar died in Ridgefield, Connecticut of heart disease aged 85, and was buried in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla, New York. She had no children. Dutch author Susan Smit published an excellent biographical novel about Farrar and her great love Lou Tellegen, 'De eerste vrouw' (The First Woman).


Swedish postcard by AE (Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm), no. 2513-3.


Swedish postcard by AE (Axel Eliassons Konstförlag, Stockholm), no. 2513-5. The swan may refer to the opera 'Lohengrin' by Richard Wagner.


German postcard G.G. & Co., no. 478/4. Photo: Gerlach.


German postcard G.G. & Co., no. 579/5. Photo: Gerlach.


Swedish postcard by Förlag Nordisk Konst, Stockholm, no. 938. Photo: Skandinavisk Film-Central, Stockholm.


Book cover for Susan Smit, 'De eerste vrouw' (2016). Publisher: Lebowski.

Sources: Andrea Suhm-Binder (Cantabile subito), Bob Hufford (Find A Grave), Wikipedia and IMDb.

This post was last updated on 2 March 2024.

A passionate love doomed to fail

In the last post in our summer series on recent film books, EFSP has another Dutch curiosity. A novel about a legendary diva of the international opera houses who had vowed never to marry, who meets a heartbreaker with the angelic face that caused a furore on the stage. In 'De eerste vrouw' (The First Woman, 2016), Susan Smit depicts the tumultuous and love story between the American Geraldine Ferrar and the Dutchman Lou Tellegen, who starred together in three silent Hollywood films. Smit based her exciting novel on historical factual material.


Book cover for Susan Smit, 'De eerste vrouw' (2016). Publisher: Lebowski, Amsterdam.


German postcard by G.G. & Co., no. 478/4. Photo: Gerlach.


German postcard by G.G. & Co., no. 579/5. Photo: Gerlach.


German postcard by G.G. & Co., no. 2414. Photo: Photo: Geraldine Farrar as Mignon in the opera 'Mignon'. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by G.G. & Co., no. 2419.

The toast of Berlin

Susan Smit unfolds in 'De eerste vrouw' the love story in two parts. First she tells about the years before Hollywood, in alternating chapters on the careers and lifes of 'Lou' and 'Geraldine'. At the end the two meet at an elegant party in Holland House in New Tork. They immediately fall in love.

Alice Geraldine Farrar (1882-1967) had always been noted for her glamorous beauty, her acting talent, and the timbre of her voice. At 5 she already began studying music in Boston and by 14 was giving recitals. Barely 20, she was the toast of Berlin.

Farrar had created a sensation in 1901 at the Berlin Hofoper with her debut as Marguerite in Charles Gounod's 'Faust'. She remained with the company for three years, during which time she appeared in the title roles of Ambroise Thomas' 'Mignon' and Jules Massenet's 'Manon', as well as Juliette in Gounod's 'Roméo et Juliette'. Her admirers in Berlin included Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany, with whom she is believed to have had a relationship beginning in 1903.

This Berlin period was interspersed with three seasons with the Monte Carlo Opera. Highlights were Pietro Mascagni's 'Amica' (1905), and Giuseppe Verdi's 'Rigoletto' (1906) in which she appeared with Enrico Caruso. In 1906, she also made her debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 'Roméo et Juliette'. The success placed her on a plateau with Caruso as a box-office magnet. The next year, she got raves for her performance as Cio-Cio-San in the Metropolitan premiere of Giacomo Puccini's 'Madama Butterfly' in 1907.

Geraldine Farrar had a seven-year love affair with the Italian conductor of the Met, Arturo Toscanini. It was rumored that she gave him an ultimatum that he must choose either her or his wife and children in Italy. It resulted in Toscanini's abrupt resignation as principal conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in 1915. Farrar was close friends with star tenor Enrico Caruso and there has been speculation that they too had a love affair, but no conclusive evidence of this has surfaced. At the Met, Farrar had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed ‘Gerry-flappers’. Farrar created the title roles in Puccini's 'Suor Angelica' (1918), Umberto Giordano's 'Madame Sans-Gêne' (1915), as well as the Goosegirl in Engelbert Humperdinck's 'Königskinder' (1910).

Her biographer Elizabeth Nash: “Unlike most of the famous bel canto singers of the past who sacrificed dramatic action to tonal perfection, she was more interested in the emotional than in the purely lyrical aspects of her roles.” Farrar remained a member of the company until her retirement in 1922, singing 29 roles there in 672 performances.

Geraldine Farrar also starred in more than a dozen silent films from 1915 to 1920, which were filmed between opera seasons. Farrar made her debut with the title role in Cecil B. De Mille's Carmen (1915), based on the novella 'Carmen' by Prosper Mérimée. For her role as the seductive gypsy girl she was extensively praised. DeMille directed her next in the silent romantic drama Temptation (Cecil B. DeMille, 1915), also with Theodore Roberts, and in the drama Maria Rosa (Cecil B. DeMille, 1916) with Wallace Reid.

Another notable screen role was as Joan of Arc in Joan the Woman (1917). This was Cecil B. DeMille's first historical drama. The screenplay is based on Friedrich Schiller's 1801 play 'Die Jungfrau von Orleans' (The Maid of Orleans).

She next played the daughter of an Aztec king in the silent romance The Woman God Forgot (Cecil B. DeMille, 1917). In the film she falls in love with a Spanish captain (Wallace Reid) whose army has come to convert the Aztecs to Christianity. Her last film for Paramount Pictures was the romance The Devil-Stone (Cecil B. DeMille, 1917), again with Wallace Reid. The film had sequences filmed in the Handschiegl Color Process, but only two of six reels are known to survive.

For Goldwyn Pictures, she appeared in such films as The Turn of the Wheel (Reginald Barker, 1918) with Herbert Rawlinson and Percy Marmont, the Western The Hell Cat (Reginald Barker, 1918), Shadows (Reginald Barker, 1918) and the melodrama The Stronger Vow (Reginald Barker, 1919), the latter three with Milton Sills. All four films are considered lost.


Vintage postcard, no. 58. Photo: Geraldine Farrar as Elsa in the opera 'Lohengrin'by Richard Wagner. Collection: Didier Hanson.


German postcard by Verlag Herm. Leiser, Berlin, no. 6530. Photo: H. Manuel. Geraldine Farrar as Tosca in the opera 'Tosca'.


French postcard. Photo: Geraldine Farrar as Mignon in the opera 'Mignon'.


German postcard by Photochemie, Berlin, no. 251. Photo: Zander und Labisch. Geraldine Farrar as Angela in 'Le Domino Noir' (1905).


German postcard by GG Cie, no. 5050. Geraldine Farrar as Madam Butterfly in 'Madama Butterfly' (1907).

Romantically involved with the Divine Sarah

Lou Tellegen (1883-1934) was the illegitimate child of former army lieutenant Isidor Louis Bernard Edmon Tellegen and actress Anna Maria van Dommelen. In 1903, Lou made his stage debut in Rotterdam.

He moved to Brussels and later to Paris, where he worked as a model for such artists as Lacroix, Constantin Meunier and Auguste Rodin, and as a prize-boxer. He studied at the Conservatoire Nationale de Musique et de Déclamation, and worked for the Theatre de l'Odéon under André Antoine, the innovative founder of the Théâtre Libre.

Later he met dandy-actor Edouard de Max, who introduced him to Sarah Bernhardt. Eventually Lou co-starred in several roles with the Divine Sarah, and was also romantically involved with her. In 1910, he made his film debut as Armand Duval alongside Bernhardt in La dame aux camélias/Camille (Louis Mercanton, 1911), a French silent film based on the play by Alexandre Dumas, fils.

In 1910, Tellegen and Bernhardt travelled to the United States to appear on stage in 'Jeanne d’Arc' (Joan of Arc). Back in France, in 1912 they made their second film together, Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth/ Queen Elizabeth (Henri Desfontaines, Louis Mercanton, 1912). The film was an adaptation of a play by Émile Moreau about episodes of the life of Elizabeth I, Queen of England (1533-1603), and focused on her ill-fated love affair with Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex (Tellegen).

The film was an enormous success in the U.S., where it was distributed by Adolph Zukor. The following year, Bernhardt and Tellegen appeared again together in Adrienne Lecouvreur/An Actress's Romance (Henri Desfontaines, Louis Mercanton, 1913). The latter is considered a lost film. In the summer of 1913, Lou Tellegen went to London where he produced, directed and starred in the Oscar Wilde play 'The Picture of Dorian Gray'.

Invited back to the United States, Lou Tellegen worked in theatre and soon became a matinee idol. His leading role in the melodrama 'Maria Rosa' was a spectacular success. Samuel Goldwyn, Financial director of the Jesse L. Lasky Feature Play Company at the time, saw, Tellegen in 1915 in this play and offered him a contract for six films.

His American film début was The Explorer (George Melford, 1915), followed by The Unknown (George Melford, 1915), both with Dorothy Davenport as his co-star. The handsome Tellegen starred in numerous silent films opposite such stars as Sessue Hayakawa, in The Victoria Cross (Edward LeSaint, 1916), and Nell Shipman, in The Black Wolf (Frank Reicher, 1917).



British postcard by Real Photograph in the Picturegoer series, London, no. 212.


British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, no. 212a.


Austrian postcard by Iris Verlag, no. 921. Photo: Fox Film.


French postcard by A.N., Paris, no. 307. Photo: Max Munn Autrey / Fox Film.

A messy and very public divorce

In 1916, the opera diva turned film actress and the matinee idol married. They appeared in three films together: The World and Its Woman (Frank Lloyd, 1919), Flame of the Desert (Reginald Barker, 1919) and The Woman and the Puppet (Reginald Barker, 1920). Farrar's final film was the silent drama The Riddle: Woman (Edward José, 1920), in which her co-star was Montagu Love.

Lou Tellegen became an American citizen in 1918. He combined his work in the cinema with a successful stage career. Tellegen also worked as a producer and co-wrote two successful plays - 'Blind youth' (1917) with Willard Mack and 'The lust of gold' (1919) with Andor Garvay – which earned him a lot of money.

Tellegen was considered one of the best-looking actors of the silent screen, although our postcards don't confirm this. He was jealous about Farrar's successes and could not stand to be in her shadow. He started to drink and gamble, and numerous affairs followed. His marriage with Farrar became the source of considerable scandal. It ended in a messy and very public divorce in 1923.

Geraldine Farrar retired from opera in 1922 at the age of 40. Her final performance was as Leoncavallo's 'Zazà'. By this stage, her voice was in premature decline due to overwork. She quickly transitioned into concert recitals, and was signed (within several weeks of announcing her opera retirement) to an appearance at Hershey Park on Memorial Day 1922. She continued to make recordings and give recitals throughout the 1920s.

Lou Tellegen appeared in numerous silent films for Vitagraph and Fox Film, including The Redeeming Sin (J. Stuart Blackton, 1925) with Alla Nazimova, and Parisian Love (Louis J. Gasnier, 1925) with Clara Bow.

One of his memorable roles was as the corrupt Sheriff in John Ford's classic Western Three Bad Men (1926), wearing a white hat instead of the stereotypical bad guy black hat. He also directed a film starring Dolores del Rio, No Other Woman (Lou Tellegen, 1928), but it was not a success.

After his face was damaged in a hotel fire in 1929 and sound film had areived, Lou Tellegen’s fame faded. Among his rare sound film appearances were a supporting part in the crime film Enemies of the Law (Lawrence C. Windom, 1931) with Mary Nolan, and a bit part in Caravane (Erik Charell, 1934) starring Charles Boyer.

Employment was not forthcoming and debt-ridden, he went bankrupt. He was diagnosed with cancer, though this information was kept from him, and he became despondent. In 1934, Tellegen locked himself in the bathroom of a mansion of a female admirer in Los Angeles. He shaved and powdered his face, and while standing in front of a full-length mirror, he committed harakiri by stabbing himself seven times with a pair of golden scissors (which had his name engraved on them).

When asked to comment on Tellegen's death, Geraldine Farrar replied candidly: "Why should that interest me?" The Tellegen interlude, the prima donna claimed long ago, left only "a surface scar." Smit imagines that Farrar must have been devastated. The handsome Dutchman had been the love of her life. She never remarried and had no children. In 1967, Farrar died in Ridgefield, Connecticut of heart disease, aged 85.

Susan Smit beautifully imagines Tellegen's and Farrar's boundless ambition, their doubts, fears and their passionate love that was doomed to fail. But at the same time the novel is the story of an exciting time in which Europe loses its innocence in a horrible war; the women's movement is slowly gaining ground, and a mass medium sees the light of day that changed the world forever: the cinema.


German postcard by K.V.i.B., Dess, no. 1016.


German postcard by PH, no. 4116/1. Geraldine Farrar as Marguerite in Charles Gounod's opera 'Faust'.


German postcard by K.V.i.B. 12. Dess., no. 4017.


French postcard, sent by mail in 1907. Geraldine Farrar in the opera 'Mignon'.


French postcard. Publicity for Vins Désiles. Photo SIP, Boyer. G. Farrar de l'Opéra Impéraile de Berlin. Caption: J'ai plaisir à recommander l'excellent Vin Désiles (I enjoy recommending the excellent V.D.).

Sources: Book, Bob Bertina (Lou Tellegen. Een Hollander in Hollywood, VN Bijlage 1985 - Dutch), A.J.C.M. Gabriëls (Institute of Netherlands History), Andrea Suhm-Binder (Cantabile subito), Bob Hufford (Find A Grave), Wikipedia and IMDb.

EFSP's Dazzling Dozen: A Night at the Opera

Nowadays, you can enjoy a night at The Metropolitan Opera in New York in your local cinema. In December 2006, The Met started a series of performance transmissions shown live in high definition in cinemas around the world. The series expanded from an initial six transmissions to 10 in the 2014–2015 season and today reaches more than 2,000 venues in 70 countries across six continents. But long before these transmissions started, several opera stars were already very popular in the cinema. Today 12 dazzling postcards of opera performers who also became film stars.


Lina Cavalieri. French postcard by S.I.P., no. 1188. Sent by mail in 1905. Photo: Reutlinger, Paris.

Around 1900, Italian soprano Lina Cavalieri (1874-1944) was considered the most beautiful woman on earth. In the 1910s, she pursued a career in the silent cinema in Italy and in the United States.


Maxim Gorky and Feodor Chaliapin. Russian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Feodor Ivanovich Chaliapin (Russian: Фёдор Ива́нович Шаля́пин) (1873–1938) was a Russian opera singer. The possessor of a large, deep and expressive bass voice, he enjoyed an important international career at major opera houses and is often credited with establishing the tradition of naturalistic acting in his chosen art form. The only sound film which shows his acting style is Don Quixote (Georg Wilhelm Pabst, 1933). Chaliapin collaborated with novelist Maxim Gorky, who wrote and edited his memoirs, which he published in 1933.


Enrico Caruso. Italian postcard. Collection: Didier Hanson.

Enrico Caruso (1873-1921) was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. Between 1908 and 1919 he appeared in five films.


Carolina White. Italian postcard by Ed. G.B. Falci, Milano, no. 56. Photo: La Fotominio. Publicity still for Il ponte dei sospiri (Domenico Gaido, 1921).

American opera singer Carolina White (1885-1961) had a short-lived film career. She played opposite the famous opera singer Enrico Caruso in My Cousin (Edward José, 1918). In 1921 she played the love interest of Luciano Albertini in the 4-part episode film Il ponte dei sospiri, directed by Domenico Gaido, and partly shot on location in Venice. After that White didn't act in film anymore. She died in Rome in 1961.


Geraldine Farrar. Dutch postcard by GG Co., no. 2419.

American silent film star Geraldine Farrar (1882-1967) was one of the most famous opera singers of the early twentieth century and one of the great beauties of her day. She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed 'Gerry-flappers'. From 1915 to 1920, she also starred in more than a dozen films, which were filmed during the then traditional 8 week summer hiatus from the opera house and concert hall. Her films included Cecil B. De Mille's adaptation of Georges Bizet's opera Carmen (1915). One of her most notable screen roles was as Joan of Arc in Joan the Woman (Cecil B. DeMille, 1917).


Richard Tauber. Dutch postcard. Photo: Filma Film. Publicity still for Ich glaub nie mehr an eine Frau (Max Reichmann, 1930).

Austrian opera singer Richard Tauber (1891-1948) was one of the world's finest Mozartian tenors of the 20th century. Some critics commented that "his heart felt every word he sang". He also tested the then new talking pictures in such popular musical films as Ich küsse Ihre Hand, Madame (1929) with Marlene Dietrich, Das Land des Lächelns (1930) and Melodie der Liebe (1932).


Willi Domgraf Fassbaender. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 152/1, 1932. Photo: Aafa Film. Publicity still for Theodor Körner (Carl Boese, 1932).

Celebrated German opera singer Willi Domgraf Fassbaender (1897–1978) was one of the leading lyric baritones of the inter-war period. He was particularly associated with Mozart and Italian roles. ‘The Italian baritone’ starred in the 1930’s in a number of musical films, which helped his shining international reputation.


Gitta Alpár. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 8756/1, 1933-1934. Photo: Angelo Fotos.

Hungarian-born Gitta Alpár (1903-1991) was a Jewish actress, opera and operetta singer, and dancer, whose career in Germany was broken by the Nazis.


Beniamino Gigli. German postcard by Ross Verlag, no. 9400/1, 1935-1936. Photo: Itala Film.

Actor and opera singer Beniamino Gigli (1890-1957) was one of the most famous Italian tenors, internationally respected for the beauty of his voice and his vocal technique. Between 1935 and 1950, 'Benito Mussolini's favourite singer' also starred in various German and Italian entertainment films.


Nelly Corradi. Italian postcard by ASER, no. 173. Photo: De Antonis.

Beautiful Nelly Corradi (1914–1968) was an Italian opera singer and actress. She made her film debut in Max Ophüls’s La signora di tutti (1934) and had her biggest successes after the war with opera films like Lucia di Lammermoor (1946).


Mario Lanza. British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. D 40. Photo: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Publicity still for The Great Caruso (Richard Thorpe, 1951).

Mario Lanza (1921–1959) was an American tenor, actor and Hollywood film star of the late 1940s and the 1950s. His masterpiece was The Great Caruso (Richard Thorpe, 1951), the top-grossing film in the world in 1951. Lanza's voice was so dazzling that an awestruck Arturo Toscanini called it the "voice of the century".


Maria Callas. German promotion card by Columbia, no. DrW 2946 d. Photo: Angus McBean.

Greek-American soprano Maria Callas (1923–1977) was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her bel canto technique, wide-ranging voice and dramatic interpretations. Her repertoire ranged from classical opera seria to the bel canto operas of Donizetti, Bellini and Rossini and further, to the works of Verdi and Puccini; and, in her early career, to the music dramas of Wagner. Her musical and dramatic talents led to her being hailed as La Divina. Her most famous film appearance was the title role in Pier Paolo Pasolini's Medea (1969).

Sources: The Metropolitan Opera, Wikipedia and IMDb.

This is a post for Postcard Friendship Friday, hosted by Beth at the The Best Hearts are Crunchy. You can visit her by clicking on the button below.