Vera Schwarz

Vera Schwarz (10 July 1888 - 4 December 1964) was an Austrian soprano, known primarily for her operetta partnership with Richard Tauber.

In her book Der Apfel fällt nicht weit vom Stamm Margarete Slezak recounts their meeting: "I paid Vera Schwarz a visit, and asked her to test my voice.

Frau Schwarz found it would be worthwhile to train my voice, and promised me, while keeping this strictly secret from my family, to give me lessons.

[3] She appeared with Tauber in the Berlin Premiere of Lehar's operetta Paganini in January 1926 at the Deutsches Künstlertheater [de], and in a new production at the Theater des Westens in April 1930, both conducted by the composer.

She and Tauber appeared, again under the composer's baton, in the October 1929 premiere of Das Land des Lächelns at the Metropol Theater in Berlin.

Having Jewish paternal grandparents, Schwarz was forced to leave Germany in 1933, singing in Vienna, giving a world premiere of a work by Salmhofer[5] in 1935, and appearing as late as 1938 with Tauber in Lehar's Das Land des Lächelns.

A few months after this performance, she emigrated first to England (where she sang Lady Macbeth in Glyndebourne), then to the United States, where she appeared in Chicago and in San Francisco, but concentrated mostly on concert appearances (including concerts at the Los Angeles German-Jewish club)[6]), and teaching in New York,[7] and in Hollywood.