Page 89 - Weiss, Jernej, ur./ed. 2025. Glasbena interpretacija: med umetniškim in znanstvenim┊Music Interpretation: Between the Artistic and the Scientific. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 8

musical interpretation: specifics of working with textual statements ...
of professional critics, the second is the “diary” in which an anonymous
9
frequent visitor to the Vienna State Opera wrote down his impressions. He
dedicated a number of entries to Eva Hadrabová-Nedbalová. I have devoted
10
a whole chapter to these observations in the aforementioned monograph.
Often in just a few words, the unknown author mentioned performances of
roles in the operas Twilight of the Gods, La Traviata, The Tales of Hoffmann,
The Iron Saviour, Das Rheingold, The Magic Flute, Der Rosenkavalier, Die
Meistersinger von Nürnberg, The Queen of Spades, Aida, Parsifal, Ariadne
auf Naxos and The Evangelist. The author of the notes followed Eva Had-
rabová-Nedbalová from late 1933 to early 1936. Thanks to his observations
we know, for example, about her pneumonia (I could not find any mention
of the illness in the press). Only rarely did the anonymous visitor evaluate
her interpretation positively; more often he chose phrases such as she sang
disastrously – she squeals horribly – she sings and plays impossibly – she is
getting worse – she sang horribly – she looked funny. Unlike most music crit-
ics, the author had the advantage of not having to seek a more diplomatic
expression for his feelings. During the Second World War, specifically from
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1939 to 1944, Eva Hadrabová-Nedbalová worked at the Nuremberg Opera.
Thanks to the archival material in the City Archives there, it is possible to
reconstruct how she managed in this institution. There is no space to go
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into detail and explain the reasons for her actions, so in summary she tried
to leave Nuremberg (a very Nazi city, “Stadt der Parteitage”) to go to Vien-
na or Graz. In fact, she did a lot to encourage the managers of the Nurem-
berg Opera to dismiss her. She was often ill (and did not hurry with her re-
covery), she complicated the fulfilment of her contract with demands for a
higher fee, she suggested being replaced by another singer, and she even de-
liberately sang poorly – yes, with deliberately wrong intonation! And here
we come to the question of the testimonial potential and relevancy of con-
temporary reviews. Their writers quite naturally and correctly assessed the
performance and cannot be blamed for statements such as that she was no
longer accurate in her pitches and that her acting was not good. It is worth
pointing out, therefore, that these statements were about a specific perfor-
mance but may not have been true in general. What is the conclusion to be
9 Available from: http://www.operinwien.at/chronik/Material/staatsoper33_36.pdf.
10 Velek, Hudební umělci mezi Ostravou a Vídní 3, 467–9.
11 Ibid., 536–59.
12 Stadtarchiv Nürnberg, shelfmark C 45/II No. 822–4, shelfmark C45/999 No. 59, 61,
64, 65, 69, shelfmark C 21/IX 1440, shelfmark C 21/XI No. 30, 84, 145, 242, shel-
fmark C 21/IX No. 340.

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