High up on the second story of a large apartment building a blue plaque identifies the flat that tenor Richard Tauber lived. The plaque is inscribed:
ENGLISH HERITAGE
RICHARD TAUBER
1891 - 1948
Lyric Tenor
lived here in flat 297
1947 - 1948
Richard Tauber was born on May 16 in Linz, Austria, to actress Elisabeth Seifferth and actor Richard Anton Tauber. His father entered him at the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt to study piano, composition and conducting. However his ambition was to sing. He instructed by voice teacher Professor Carl Beines, who encouraged him to sing more quietly visualized him as a promising Mozart tenor.
He made his public debut in Freiburg on May 17, 1912 and subsequently appeared as Tamino in The Magic Flute on March 2, 1913. A few days later he played Max in Der Freischütz and Baron Seebach of the Dresden Opera offered Tauber a five-year contract.
While in Dresden, Tauber was a remarkably quick study, e.g. he learned Gounod's Faust in 48 hours and Bacchus in Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos in an afternoon. In 1922, Tauber signed a contract with the Vienna State Opera, followed by appearances with the Berlin State Opera. He sang the tenor role in many operas, including Don Giovanni, The Bartered Bride, Tosca, Mignon, Faust, Carmen and Die Fledermaus. In June 1919 he made the first of over seven hundred grammophone records for the Odeon Records label and the Parlophone label.
Tauber began performing in operettas in 1920. This it gave him a new audience and increased his popularity. Tauber appeared in films, such as the early German sound film I Kiss Your Hand, Madame (1929) with Marlene Dietrich and Harry Liedtke.
In 1931, Tauber made his London debut in operetta and toured the USA. In 1933, to avoid Nazi harassment, Tauber, whose father was Jewish at birth, left Germany for his native Austria, where he continued to sing at the Vienna State Opera.
In 1938, after the Nazi annexation of Austria, Tauber left Austria and applied for British citizenship. He remained in the UK for the entire war. In April 1947, Tauber sought medical attention for a persistent cough. He was diagnosed with lung cancer and died on January 8, 1948 in London Clinic. He is buried in Brompton Cemetery, London.