Leo Slezak

"Papa told her about a Lohengrin performance. It was just before his first entrance. He was ready to step into the boat, which, drawn by a swan, was to take him on-stage. Somehow the stagehand on the other side got his signals mixed, started pulling, and the swan left without Papa. He quietly turned around and said: "What time's the next swan?" That story has since become a classic in operatic lore."

"During my first year on the stage at Brünn [1896/97] I conceived the idea of a pilgrimage to Bayreuth, in order to hear and to see the wonders of Wagner's works at the spot dedicated to his memory. I was successful in my application to the management of the Festival for a free pass for the cycle - four nights of The Ring of the Nibelungen and Parzifal, on condition that I sang at an audition held in Bayreuth by Frau Cosima Wagner, who took every opportunity of seeking new talent. [...]"

"After America had entered the war in December 1941 all postal service with Germany and Austria was stopped. But Papa had faithfully kept on writing to me, a ten-page letter nearly every week. They were never mailed and I found them, neatly bundled, sealed and addressed to me. … And now, on the plane, winging back home, I began to read his letters. They are remarkable documents. It's the whole war, as seen from the other side, through the eyes of a man who detested the fascist system, who hated the Nazis with a white fury. In the midst of the astonishing German victories in the early part of the war he was firmly convinced that Hitler MUST and WOULD lose. He dreaded communism, and all his predictions have come true. He told of all the spying that went on, the denunciations to the Gestapo, the sudden disappearances of innocent people, of the daily new edicts and restrictions, of confiscations that were nothing but robberies, arrests, and executions; how every crime committed was draped in the mantilla of legality. His great perception, intelligence, decency, his wonderful humanity, his love of music and above all his worshipful adoration for his Elsa — through every page they shimmered with luminescent radiance."