RICHARD TAUBER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20898, 13 June 1931, Page 10 (Supplement)

RICHARD TAUBER.

GREAT GERMAN TENOR. !t PRINCELY SALARY PAID. From a part-time conductor of a German municipal band at a salary of £1 17s a Week to a famous tenor commanding a salary running well into four figures —that is the romantic career of Herr Tauber, the Austrian singer, who fijrived in London recently for his appearance at the Drury Lano Theatre in tho F*aiiz Lehar operetta " The Land of Smiles." The sum paid to Herr Tauber for his first stage appearance in England was approximately £ISOO a week. Herr Tauber spoke very frankly to an interviewer, of his early struggles to be Allowed to study singing. *' My father," he said, " was conductor of the Wiesbaden municipal orchestra, and was determined that*l should follow in his footsteps. Ho was distinctly rude about my voice and, ■When I was 19 years old_, refused to let me have lessons in singing. Then I foil violently in love, and my father, in despair, packrd me off to a university. This proved tho making of me, because at the university I fell into the hands of a professor' who had immediate faith in my voice and began to coach me. in earnest."