"An early climax was reached with Furtwängler's presentation of 'Fidelio'. Julius Patzak (Florestan), Erna Schlüter in
the title-rôle, Ferdinand Frantz (Pizarro) and Herbert Alsen (Rocco) contributed to a magnificent performance. Since the
three performances took place during the first ten days, the writer was unable to attend; but those who heard it were
unanimous in their statements that the 1948 'Fidelio' differed by no means from the pre-war standard."
"The modern idea was represented by Frank Martin's chamber-oratorio 'Le vin herbé' (performed at a Morley College concert
in London last January). The work has thus reached its first stage production by O.F. Schuh, with scenery by Caspar Neher.
As at the first Austrian performance in Vienna last spring, the music failed to create a definite impression, although the
singers did their best to master their difficult tasks. Special mention is due to Julius Patzak for his dramatic singing in
the part of Tristan. Ferenc Fricsay conducted the small 'Vin herbé' orchestra."
G.E. Arnold, Musical Times, October 1948, p.317.
Salzburg Festival 1949
"An entirely new version of Mozart's 'La Clemenza di Tito' may deserve closer attention. Bernhard Paumgartner, the well-
known biographer of Mozart and director of the Salzburg Mozarteum, embarked on the rather daring enterprise of entirely
re-casting Mozart's opera seria. From Mazzola's version of the text Paumgartner went back to Metastasio's original and thus
provided a more solid dramatic background. Additional music was taken from sketches for 'Idomeneo' and from 'König Thamos'
in order to cover the extended libretto; and the whole was named 'Titus'. Most of the critics were favourably disposed
towards the new version, although some still maintained that adaptations of this kind, no matter how sincere their
intentions, should not be encouraged. In this reviewer's opinion the scholarship and skill of Paumgartner's experiment
will establish it, not only at Salzburg but at Vienna, and give us plentiful opportunity for its re-examination. The
conductor at Salzburg was Joseph Krips, the principals Julius Patzak (Titus) and Hilde Zadek (Vitellia)."
Kurt Blaukopf, Musical Times, November 1949, p.407.
Salzburg Festival 1950
"The production of 'Fidelio', conducted (as also were the two Mozart operas) by Furtwängler, was
undoubtedly the highlight of the festival, seeming to sum with the deepest conviction and spirituality a vein of idealism
apparent in Austria today. Flagstad, however, was very disappointing, appearing so ill-at-ease in the title-rôle that even
her tone and phrasing were by no means what they usually are. Elizabeth Schwarzkopf (Marzelline) and Julius Patzak
(Florestan) were, on the other hand, exceptionally fine."
David Cherniavsky, Musical Times, November 1950, p.441-442.
Fidelio at Covent Garden, May 1951
"The villain in the first act at Covent Garden last night was not Pizarro but the orchestra, the
deliverer in the second act not Fernando but Mr. Julius Patzak, in that his Florestan transformed what began as a
perfunctory performance into a truly moving one.
This distinguished visitor from Vienna is not only a beautiful singer, using intelligence as
well as voice, but also a fine actor; his delivery of his spoken sentences alone should have served as a lesson to those
British members of the cast, who, after all, were using their mother-tongue, as Mr. Patzak was not. His actual singing was
done in German (like that of Mme. Flagstad and Miss Schwarzkopf), and in the dungeon scene it called out the very best from
Mme. Flagstad, who earlier on had given us a detached 'Abscheulicher' and had found difficulty in reducing her noble voice
to the intimacy of 'Mir is so wunderbar' without some loss of tonal beauty.
In bearing as in song, Miss Schwarzkopf was an enchanting Marcelline; the Rocco and Pizarro of
Mr. Howell Glynne and Mr. Tom Williams were adequate without being outstanding. Dr. Karl Rankl has obviously not the same
sympathetic understanding of Beethoven as he has of later German romantics. His accompaniments were disproportionately loud
and often inflexible, and not till 'Leonora No. 3' did the orchestra reveal its full potentialities. For the ensemble in the
last scene, however, his singers must shoulder the greater part of the blame. As for the production, more darkness would
give added point to 'Gott! welch Dunkel hier,' and the prisoners could profitably simulate still wearier spirits."
The Times, May 17, 1951.
"It is true that Beethoven was least himself on the stage, but with the most
original genuis (as well as with the most unoriginal hack) the way from least-himself to most-himself is short. In
other words, though Beethoven is not Fidelio, Fidelio is great Beethoven, and a production of the
opera should make one continuously alive to the rebirth of drama out of the spirit of absolute music.
It is immoral to be polite in the face of profanation. The production under review
showed the birth of an unconscious parody out of the spirit of producing. The astounding ballet scene between
Pizarro and Leonora had to be seen to be adquately appraised, but the printed word will do in the case of the
First Prisoner's masquerade. He was dressed up as a priest--the inanest idea, one may safely surmise, in the annals of
operatic production. The very slightest understanding of the music makes it clear that the simple, sublime and
sudden G major sentence in the prisoners' chorus is not a little sermon, not a piece of professional advice: the
prisoner is not intent upon impressing anything upon his fellow sufferers, but expresses a simple and
ordinary man's--Anyman's--calm and (in more than one sense) liberating trust in God. It was, of course, for this
reason that Beethoven wrote over the solo "one or several of the prisoners," not perhaps because he thought
that the chorus's solo tenor might not be good enough. Covent Garden's may well be the first priest in history who
said the right thing and yet debased his religion.
Musically, the bad was bad and the good was not so good as it could have been owing
to Rankl's absurdly exaggerated tempi in at least five numbers (1, 2, 4, 6, 11) and the crude and cruelly anti-vocal
noise that emanated more or less continuously from the orchestra pit; not to speak of the conductor's neglect of
such things as the first act's first motif's all-important first quaver, which under his hands became a sprightly
semiquaver, or the piano subito after the second duet's last fermata, which was simply ignored. He had
however some masterly moments particularly in the two overtures. In the first for instance the return of the opening
allegro was marked by a strongly forward-urging tempo, thus driving the phrase on as it were over the
fermata and the adagio to the coda.
Schwarzkopf was highly enjoyable if one forgot how good she could be in
different circumstances; the phrase "mit unaussprechlich süsser Lust," for instance, with the italicized
syllable descending from the aria's apex, was an experience under Furtwängler at last year's Salzburg Festival,
whereas at the present pace it became a fairly expressive vocal exercise. Flagstad tried and often did her best
with a rôle for whose greater part she is constitutionally unsuited. There remained Patzak--one of the
sovereign singers and musicians of today and yesterday. He was chased through the quick part of his scena
(which Beethoven wished to be rendered "in an ecstasy bordering on madness, yet calm") at such a
speed that much of the overpowering, almost superhuman phrasing of his Salzburg performances was lost; for
example, the urging, implied slurs, over the crotchet rests, from one "der" to the next, had to give way to an
attempt to find room at all for something resembling a crotchet rest. Altogether, it needed indeed a Patzak to
shine through this rather mediocre effort and to send one home with an unshaken belief in the necessity of opera."
(May 21st performance)
Hans Keller, Opera, July 1951, pp.432-433.
Fidelio, Rome , Spring 1951
"Owing to ill health Klemperer was unable to take charge of the Fidelio
performances as originally planned; Karl Elmendorff who took his place at short notice was the outstanding
personality of the evening. The singing on this occasion was quite a different story from that in Mathis der Maler;
Patzak was excellent vocally and dramatically; Goltz though still handicapped by her London knee injury
did not allow this to restrict her acting ability and her voice was often thrilling; Uhde was a sombre Pizarro and
Böhme as Rocco, better in his dialogue passages than when singing. Emmy Loose was too self-conscious
and even in the last scene seemed so hypnotized by Leonora that she was unable to take any interest in Jaquino
who, in the person of Murray Dickie, far from disgraced this often ungrateful role."
T. de Beneducci, Opera, May 1951, p.298.
Edinburgh Festival 1952
"The Concertgebouw played under Van Beinum and Kubelik: soloists, Ferrier and Patzak in 'Das Lied von der Erde', Annie
Woud in Mengelberg's 'Magnificat', Fournier in the Elgar Cello concerto."
W.R. Anderson, Musical Times, October 1952, p.459-60.
Fidelio at Covent Garden, February 1954
"How strange that so many performances conducted by Clemens Krauss leave a
faint taste of ashes. No one who heard the fabulous account he gave of Till Eulenspiegel with the Vienna
Philharmonic Orchestra on their last visit to London can doubt his outstanding gifts, and certainly there was much
to admire in his Fidelio. But it is a work that confounds every theory about opera. Riddled with faults and
failings, it triumps over them all by its sheer grandeur of spirit. It captures, as does Wordsworth's early poetry,
that untroubled faith in the essential nobility and goodness of man, that must have madethe closing years of the
eighteenth century a period infuriating in which to be old, however blissful it may have been to be young.
But it was just at those wonderful moments, when Beethoven's genius overflows
with the humanity of the prisoners' chorus and the trio Euch werde Lohn in besser'n Welt, or with the
ecstatic yet spiritual joy of O namenlose Freude and the unjustly depreciated final scene, that Krauss's
interpretation was most inadequate. Like his Meistersinger, his Fidelio has a hollow core. Many
things about the performance were good: the details of the accompaniment (particularly where these are small in
scale), the tempi and the balance between singers and the orchestra were admirable. But Fidelio is in its
way a religious work. Properly done, it should bring conviction of some sort of eternal truth. I left the opera house
in a very sceptical frame of mind and so, I fancy, did Professor Krauss.
Still there was the consolation of some good singing. A.P. justly remarked in the
last issue of OPERA that there was a certain monotony in Sylvia Fisher's sweetness. There is too little differentiation
between her Elsa, Sieglinde, and Ellen Orford, and her Agathe is likely to be on the same model. But her Leonore
is both distinctive and distinguished, even if on this occasion her make-up was not very flattering. Her legato
line was much more confident than it has been for a while, and the arduous Abscheulicher that demands
agility as well as power, was sung with impressive conviction. Above all here was the moral passion that Krauss
so conspicuously lacked. Julius Patzak's voice is showing signs of wear in the upper register, and his
Florestan was not to be compared with the unforgettable performances he gave under Furtwangler at Salzburg.
But what a stylist he is! How impeccable is his intonation, how instrumental is the precision of the phrase das
Mass der Leiden from the opening recitative of the second act, how remarkable is the resonance that enables
his small, reedy voice to fill a vast theatre and how moving is his ability to respond to every emotion that assails
Florestan! The manner in which he slowly lowered his hands to convey the relaxation of unbearable tension as the
trumpet announced the arrival of this governor was alone indication of his stature as an artist." (February 3 performance)