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In 1919 Melchior got his first big chance singing Wagnerian roles at London's Covent Garden, six years later moved on to Bayreuth and Munich, where he was rated one of the finest German-style tenors of the day. One sunny afternoon in 1926 he made his debut at Manhattan's Metropolitan Opera House. That evening, ill-starred Kansas City Soprano Marion Talley made hers. In the storm and shuffle of publicity that attended Soprano Talley's debut, Melchior was practically overlooked. One critic described his acting as "barely more than awkward." But Melchior stayed on. Not long afterward, Soprano Talley's bubble had burst, and Manhattan operagoers began to think that Melchior was the best all-round Heldentenor they had heard since Jean de Reszke. As the years went by, and Wagnerian opera became the Met's specialty, sturdy Lauritz Melchior rolled up a world's record for Wagnerian trouping. To date he has sung 188 Siegfrieds, 138 Siegmunds, 104 Tannhusers, 54 Parsifals, 68 Lohengrins and 163 Tristans—nearly twice as many as the great Jean de Reszke himself.
Today, rotund, greying, 49-year-old Lauritz Melchior, the best Heldentenor of them all, is content to rest on his laurels. The father of two grown children (by his first wife, Danish-born Inger Nathansen, who died in 1927), he occasionally frets about 22-year-old Son Ib's cinema ambitions in Hollywood, keeps 19-year-old Daughter Birte hard at her business-school courses in Copenhagen. Though he diets in summer to keep his weight down to 225 Ibs., he takes his winter opera performances in his stride, often eats heavy meals before he goes to the opera house, smokes all the cigars he wants to, drinks his aqvavit neat. His brown-eyed, Bavarian-born wife Kleinchen (real name Maria Hacker), who could almost be tucked into one of the pockets of his massive vest, keeps him well fed and amused. One of the things about her that amuses him most is the way they met. Originally a cinema actress with the old German UFA films, Frau Melchior landed in her future husband's garden in a parachute during the filming of a picture. Since their marriage in 1925 Kleinchen has never missed one of his performances. She accompanies him on all his tours, entertains his guests, manages all his business affairs, passes upon his contracts, writes his letters, helps with his press interviews, welcomes his friends to the Melchior eight-room apartment at the Ansonia.
Though he lives in Germany and sings in the U. S., tenants of the Ansonia do not need to be reminded that Heldentenor Melchior is a Dane. Melchior himself never forgets it either. On his island castle in Germany he always flies the Danish flag. And on the door of his Manhattan apartment is a sign. It reads: "Lauritz Melchior, singer to the Royal Court of Denmark."
*Liquor (88 proof) distilled from potatoes; name a corruption of aqua vitae, brandy. *Stars at the fusty Metropolitan do not have private dressing rooms. All leading tenors use the same one.