Evocative, dramatic still photography of opera performance and performers is an art in itself. Unfortunately for posterity, it was rarely if ever accomplished in Lauritz Melchior's day. Photographic technology made it impossible to get fluid images under the theatre stage's dim light. The stiffness, the stasis of "studio portraiture" proved at odds with the operatic art and the operatic artist. Unflattering depictions of subjects out of character, with their intended-for-long-distance-viewing costumes, wigs and makeup deglamorized, could and did make opera and opera singers look a joke. Lauritz Melchior's portraits often show him to be "in" on that joke.

Over time, the permanency of the photographic medium trumped the ephemerality of the live performances it misrepresented. Memories viewed through this distorted lens left behind extraneous impressions.

The most artistic, as opposed to journalistic, photography taken of Melchior in costume seems to have been done in conjunction with his appearances at Bayreuth between 1924 and 1931. The European photographers of the time seemed to take the most care in conjuring up appropriate Romantic moods.

This page will feature some of the better pictures of Lauritz Melchior alone and with his colleagues. There is another separate gallery dedicated to Lauritz Melchior's colleagues, so frequently mentioned on this site, here.

 

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