Historical Context

The predecessor to the building of the New German Theatre (today’s State Opera) was the New Town Theatre (Neustädter Theater), which stood from 1859 to 1885 on the land of the former garden belonging to the farmstead “Smetanka”. The building was erected on the initiative of Franz Thomé (1807–1872), director of the Estates Theatre, according to plans by Josef Niklas (1817–1877). It was a wooden theatre intended for performances in relatively warm weather with 1,241 seats and ca. 2,000 standing places, and served for presentation of grandiose productions for which the old building on Ovocný trh (Fruit Market) was insufficient. German and Czech performances of plays and operas were given in this theatre with gas lighting. In 1864 it was the main venue for celebrations of the three hundredth anniversary of William Shakespeare’s birth, which included the famous processions of consumed Shakespearean characters around Prague depicted by the painter Karel Purkyně (1834–1868). The New Town Theatre earned a place in the history of Czech opera as the site of the premieres of Bedřich Smetana’s Dalibor (on 16 May 1868 – the day the foundation stone was laid for the National Theatre), Karel Bendl’s Břetislav (18 September 1870) and Vojtěch Hřímalý’s Zakletý princ (The Enchanted Prince – 13 May 1872) among other works. A series of devastating fires in theatres around Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century led to a tightening of safety regulations which restricted the operation of wooden structures from that time on, and after twenty-six years the New Town Theatre was taken down to make way for a new building of masonry. 

New German Theatre (1888–1938)
Plans for construction of the New German Theatre were entrusted by the German Theatre Association (Deutscher Theaterverein) to the Viennese firm of architects Ferdinand Fellner (1847–1916) and Hermann Helmer (1849–1919), who designed a whole series of theatres on the territory of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and elsewhere – in the Czech lands, for example, theatres in Karlovy Vary, Brno, Liberec, Jablonec nad Nisou, and Mladá Boleslav. Karl Hasenauer, architect of Vienna’s Burgtheater, also shared in the design, and the actual construction was overseen by the Prague architect Alfons Wertmüller. Over the span of twenty months a magnificent building arose in place of the former New Town Theatre, with its main facade looking toward what was then Sadová Street (now Wilson Street), linking the upper part of the Horse Market (i.e. Wenceslas Square) with the Emperor Franz Josef Train Station (now the Main Station).

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At that time this street – along which ran an iron fence with a tax-collection station – formed the boundary between Prague’s New Town and the still-independent suburb of Královské Vinohrady. Southward from the new theatre stretched a garden in which a restaurant was opened to serve refreshments to theatre-goers and a musical pavilion was erected for concerts. In the 1920s this garden fell victim to one of the theatre’s financial crises when if had to be sold as a building lot.

The architects Fellner and Helmer designed the New German Theatre in Neo-Renaissance style, which was commonly used in the second half of the nineteenth century for major public buildings – in Prague, for example, by Josef Zítek for the National Theatre, by Josef Schulz for the National Museum, and by these two architects together for the Rudolfinum. The facade over the entrance portico is highlighted by six Corinthian columns supporting a tympanum with a relief by the Viennese sculptor Theodor Friedl (1842–1899) depicting the allegorical figure of poet who, as described by Hermann Katz, “after the death of Orpheus, torn to pieces by the Maenads, grasps his lyre fetched from the waves and rides with it on Pegasus up to the sphere of eternal glory. […] The summit of the gable is crowned by a statue of Fama with a trombone and a palm branch, while at the right is a sculpture of the Muse Thalia and at the left Dionysus on a chariot drawn by a lion and leopard.” Busts of Schiller, Goethe, and Mozart originally looked down from the oval windows between the columns of the facade; after World War II they were removed in the process of “denazification”. The relatively sober side facades ended with terraces on the upper level adjacent to the viewing area of the theatre; later they were walled in. Historical postcards document the transformations of the theatre’s environment. Originally this space was dominated by the theatre, to the left of which was built a hotel that no longer exists, and to the right the building of the Crop Market on the land of the former theatre garden. 

Originally the theatre had a capacity of almost two thousand viewers. But this included more than five hundred standing places on the ground level and the gallery, and this number was greatly reduced during the reconstruction from 1967 to 1973: today there are only twenty standing places for sale. The theatre was equipped with combined electric and gas lighting and had a hot-air heating system with four furnaces; the ventilation system had an output of 90,000 cubic meters per hour. The stage was 13.8 meters wide at the proscenium arch and 23 meters inside. The front part of the stage was 16.3 meters deep and the back part 8.7 meters; thus in all a space 25 meters deep was available. The stage was separated from the seating area by a two-part fire curtain as well as a painted curtain, which has not survived, by Eduard Veith (1858–1925). Veith also created the decorative fresco on the ceiling of the seating area; among his other projects were the ceiling fresco and curtain in the German People’s Theatre in Vienna. Unlike the exterior of the building, the seating area was treated in Neo-Rococo style, and to this day its rich ornamentation ranks it among the most beautiful theatre interiors in Europe. 

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1888–1910 / Angelo Neumann photo

Angelo Neumann (1838–1910) was the first director of the New German Theatre in Prague. Originally a successful baritone, he witnessed Wagner’s own productions of Tannhäuser and Lohengrin at the Vienna Court Opera in 1875 and became a personal friend of the composer. At the opera in Leipzig, where he became a director after prematurely ending his singing career, he presented Wagner’s operas over the course of six years, including the first complete performance of the Ring outside Bayreuth. Later he founded his own “travelling” theatre (the Richard Wagner Theatre) with which he visited a large part of Europe. This company presented outstanding Wagnerian singers of the time. In 1885 Neumann accepted the post of director of the Estates Theatre in Prague (the Königliches deutsches Landestheatre) and three years later his powers were extended also to the building of the New German Theatre. He administered this building, leased by the German Theatre Association (Deutscher Theaterverein), as a private individual, and remained in the post of director until his death in 1910. For a quarter century he was the authoritative leading personage of German theatre in Prague and thanks to his unshakable will, hard work, and inborn theatrical instinct he succeeded in raising German theatre in Prague to a European level.

1911–1918 / Heinrich Teweles photo

On 15 October 1911, following a competitive selection process, the New German Theatre was entrusted to Heinrich Teweles (1856–1928). As a former programming director for spoken plays at the New German Theatre, editor of the German daily Bohemia, and later editor-in-chief of the Prager Tagblatt he has been in close contact with theatrical doings for years and had all the prerequisites to become a successful successor to Neumann. He could make decisions himself regarding spoken plays, but he felt the need to find a partner competent in matters of opera, which was not his strong point. Perhaps his most meritorious deed for the theatre during his whole period in office came at the very beginning when he hired Alexander Zemlinsky for the post of chief conductor.

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1918–1927 / Leopold Kramer photo

On 1 November 1918 the Viennese actor Leopold Kramer (1869–1942) replaced Heinrich Teweles as director of the New German Theatre. Teweles himself had asked the German Theatrical Association for premature termination of his contract because he felt that his era was ending with the fall of the monarchy. After years spent on the stage of the Volkstheater in Vienna, Kramer was returning to his native city with enthusiasm for the new job. He couldn’t guess what problems he would encounter before long what with loss of the second theatre building – the German Landestheater (Estates Theatre). During his term of office as director he also appeared on stage and served as stage director.

1927–1932 / Robert Volkner photo

After Leopold Kramer announced in December 1926 his intention to leave his position as director of the New German Theatre at the end of the season, Robert Volkner (1871–1950) emerged as the successful candidate in the competition for the new director. He has no previous relation to Prague, but in his inaugural speech on 1 September 1927 he expressed his pleasure at the prospect of working with the ensemble and emphasized the important place of the Prague theatre among German stages. He had extensive experience with the theatre management from his earlier “stops” in Leipzig, Frankfurt, Karlsruhe, and Vienna. Volkner took the position in a politically-restless time of strengthening fascism and the culminating economic crisis, which influenced his era to a considerable extent, and what with the growing problems he remained in the director’s position for only one term of office (1927–1932).

1932–1938 / Paul Eger photo

When it became clear that the director of the New German Theatre Robert Volkner would not apply for renewal of his contract, the German Theatrical Association arranged in advance for his replacement by Paul Eger (1881–1947). Eger already served as Volkner’s advisor during the 1931–1932 season before taking over the directorship himself on 1 September 1932. A native of Vienna, Eger had studied philosophy and art history, traveled in Italy and Spain, and worked at the New German Theatre for the first time from 1908 to 1912 as programming director and stage director (directing Le nozze di Figaro and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg). For the next six years he was general director of the Court Theatre in Darmstadt, after which he held the same position at the German Spoken Play Theatre in Hamburg (1918–1926). Starting in autumn of 1926 he lived in Berlin where he devoted himself to planning and organizing musical and theatrical events: for example the first guest appearance by the whole ensemble of Milan’s La Scala outside Italy, led by Toscanini, came about thanks to him. With his ascent to the position of director in Prague came considerable (in many respect positive) changes in the ensemble, the last resurrection of the traditional May festival, and several remarkable stagings as we shall see. Eger’s dual citizenship facilitated his departure from Prague in the fall of 1938 for Switzerland, where he spent the last years of his life in poor health alongside his wife Valeska Nigrini, once a leading mezzo-soprano at the New German Theatre.

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1888–1892 / Karl Muck photo

After previous engagements in Zürich, Salzburg, Brno, and Graz, Karl Muck (1959–1940) was hired in 1886 as chief conductor at the Estates Theatre in Prague, replacing the departing Gustav Mahler. Then from 1888 to 1892 he was the chief conductor of the New German Theatre, where he assured polished performances of works in both the classical and the contemporary repertoire. After his departure from Prague his career continued in Berlin, Boston, and Bayreuth. He was an admired specialist in Wagner’s works, especially Parsifal. 

1892–1895 / Rudolf Krzyzanowski photo

A native of Cheb, Rudolf Krzyzanowski (1859–1911), a classmate of Gustav Mahler at the Vienna Conservatory, was engaged at Mahler's recommendation to the New German Theatre in 1892 as the principal conductor, succeeding Karl Muck. In Prague, he established himself primarily as a Wagnerian conductor, gradually reworking all of Wagner's operas in the repertoire and newly staging Die Feen (The Fairies) outside Bayreuth for the first time. He earned critical acclaim mainly for his performances in the field of German opera. After leaving Prague, he reunited with Gustav Mahler at the Hamburg Opera, where he took the position of second conductor

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1895–1898 / Franz Schalk photo

Conductor Franz Schalk (1863–1931), who succeeded Rudolf Krzyzanowski as head of the opera, had his debut in a new production of Heinrich Marschner’s Der Templer und die Jüdin which opened on 18 August 1895. He came to Prague having studied with Anton Bruckner at the Vienna Conservatory. In three seasons at the New German Theatre he conducted twelve new works as well as ten other new productions. In the 1898–1899 season he led the first unabbreviated Ring at the Metropolitan Opera. From 1900 to 1929 he worked at the Court Opera in Vienna, first alongside Gustav Mahler and Richard Strauss and in later years as the independent head of the opera. In 1898, 1907, and 1911 his Ring was also admired by audiences of the Royal Opera at Covent Garden in London.

1899–1906 / Leo Blech photo

Leo Blech (1871–1958) worked for the opera of the New German Theatre from 1899 to 1906. He showed a sense for contemporary music in the very first new work he appeared here, Pfitzner’s opera Der arme Heinrich. Blech himself was a successful composer; of his four operas performed in Prague, Aschenbrödel even had its world premiere here. Among his accomplishments were preparation of the world premieres of the operas Der polnische Jude, Tiefland, and Flauto solo, the Prague premieres of Samson et Dalila and Salome, the Prague German-language premiere of Tosca, care for the Mozart repertoire, and development of Philharmonic Concerts. From Prague he went to Berlin, like Muck and Schalk before him. During World War II he worked in Riga and Stockholm. He was renowned mainly as an interpreter of Wagner and Verdi, but the opera he conducted most often (about six hundred times) was Carmen. 

1906–1911/ Paul Ottenheimer

Paul Ottenheimer (1873–1951) took over as the principal conductor of the New German Theatre following the departure of Leo Blech. His tenure lasted until the arrival of Alexander Zemlinsky in 1911, during which time Ottenheimer continued to serve as the second conductor for a while. Over his five years at the theatre, he gained renown for his Wagnerian performances, repeatedly conducting the entire tetralogy. One of the first premieres he conducted after his appointment was Das Strandrecht by composer and suffragette Ethel Mary Smith, which drew a significant audience to the theatre.

1911–1927 / Alexander Zemlinsky photo

see the profile of Alexander Zemlinsky

1927–1929 / Hans Wilhelm Steinberg photo

Hans Wilhelm Steinberg (1899–1978) was engaged at the New German Theatre by Alexander Zemlinsky in the 1925–1926 season. He came to Prague having gained his first experience as an assistant of Otto Klemperer. After Zemlinsky's departure he took over management of the opera for the next two seasons. Of the eleven new works he conducted (in addition to twenty new productions of earlier titles) we should mention the Prague German premieres of Janáček’s Katya Kabanova and Weinberger’s Švanda dudák (Schwanda the Bagpiper), the first Prague performances of Zemlinsky’s Der Zwerg (The Dwarf) and Busoni’s Arlecchino, and not least Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin, in which the ballet corps made a relatively rare independent appearance. In 1929 Steinberg accepted the position of music director of the opera in Frankfurt. Then in 1936 he emigrated to Palestine, and in 1938 he accepted an invitation from Arturo Toscanini to come to the USA where he devoted himself mainly to concerts as conductor of various orchestras.

1929–1937 / George Szell photo

George Szell (1897–1970) succeeded Hans Wilhelm Steinberg as the principal conductor of the New German Theatre in September 1929. In the hierarchy of conductors who contributed most to the development of the Prague German opera Szell clearly stands immediately behind Alexander Zemlinsky – in second place perhaps, only because of the shorter period of his employment. Before taking the position of head of the opera in Prague he performed a piano concerto here in 1910 as a “Wunderkind” and in 1919 he worked here in a short engagement as one of the assistant conductors. Then he made his way via Darmstadt and Düsseldorf to the position of regular conductor at the State Opera in Berlin, from which his path led back to Prague. During eight seasons at the New German Theatre he prepared eighteen new works and thirty new productions of works previously performed here; in orchestral concerts he focused above all on Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Mahler, and Bruckner. In 1937 the sharpening political tensions in Europe prompted Szell to emigrate to the USA, where he began with concerts of the NBC Symphony Orchestra. At the Metropolitan Opera he was a specialist in Wagner and Strauss, and in 1946 he became chief conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra. In the post-war period he again worked in Europe: for twenty years he was a conductor at the Salzburg Festival, where he presented the world premieres of Rolf Liebermann’s operas Penelope and Die Schule der Frauen (The School of Wives) as well as Werner Egk’s Irische Legende. Prague experienced his conducting art only one more time, in a Prague Spring Festival concert with the Czech Philharmonic in 1959. 

1937–1938 / Karl Rankl photo

After the departure of George Szell the baton of chief conductor of the opera at the New German Theatre was taken over in September 1937 by Karl Rankl (1898–1968). He studied music privately with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern in Vienna and gained experience in orchestral conducting starting in 1925 with opera houses in Liberec (Reichenberg), Königsberg, Berlin (the Kroll-Oper), and Graz. After his arrival in Prague a trial awaited him in the form of preparations for the January celebration of the theatre’s fiftieth anniversary. The closing of the theatre in September 1938 prevented the higher ascent of his career in Prague. After the Second World War broke out he left for England where he worked first at Covent Garden then starting in 1951 as a symphonic conductor in Glasgow. From 1958 to 1960 he was music director for the Elisabeth Trust Opera Company (later the Australian Opera). Among his greatest achievements during the time of his work in Prague was the world premiere of Ernst Krenek’s opera Karl V. 

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1907–1910 / Arthur Bodanzky photo

Arthur Bodanzky (1877–1939) made his debut in 1900 in České Budějovice with a production of Jones's operetta The Geisha featuring an eighteen-piece orchestra. From 1915 until his death, he was a conductor at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with an immensely broad repertoire ranging from Gluck to contemporary composers. There he led the American premiere of the opera Švanda dudák (Schwanda the Bagpiper) by the Czech composer Jaromír Weinberger. At the New German Theatre, Bodanzky was often entrusted with revivals of older productions, although he also prepared three opera premieres. Additionally, he was involved in operetta and philharmonic concerts.

1907–1910 / Otto Klemperer photo

Otto Klemperer (1885–1973) served as a conductor at the New German Theatre during the same period as Arthur Bodanzky, from 1907 to 1910. Alongside the principal conductor, Paul Ottenheimer, he was mainly entrusted with revivals of older productions, and he prepared only one premiere (Julius Stern's Narcis Rameau). He was also involved in operetta and Philharmonic concerts. Klemperer reached his artistic peak as the music director of the Kroll Opera in Berlin (1927–1931), after the war he conducted at the Budapest Opera, and at a relatively advanced age he debuted at London’s Covent Garden.

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1922–1927 / Viktor Ullmann photo

see the profile of Viktor Ullmann

1929–1934 / Max Rudolf photo

In the year George Szell took up the position of principal conductor at the New German Theatre, the talented Max Rudolf (1902–1995) was appointed as the second conductor. He had ahead of him a dazzling career in America after 1940. He was a great support for Szell, especially during the time when the chief conductor was honoring his foreign commitments. One of the first tasks entrusted to him was preparing and conducting Mozart’s early opera Lucio Silla, whose performance on 14 December 1929 in Prague was the first since its original premiere in Milan in 1772. This was a case similar to that of Gluck’s Paride ed Elena during the time of Angelo Neumann, when Prague could claim the modern-day premiere of forgotten work.

1934–1938 / Fritz Zweig photo

With the new 1934–1935 season, conductor Fritz Zweig (1893–1984), a native of Olomouc, joined the New German Theatre. He studied in Vienna under Schönberg. His conducting career began in 1919 in Barmen-Elberfeld, and from there, he progressed through the Berlin Volksoper to the State Opera in Berlin, where he worked from 1927. In Prague, he found temporary refuge from the growing Nazi threat in Germany. After the theatre's closure, he moved to the Paris Opera, and in 1940, he emigrated to the USA with his wife, singer Tilly de Garmo, where he performed as a guest conductor and taught privately. At the Prague German Opera from 1934 to 1938, he reliably prepared over thirty repertoire titles. Among new works, he took on Stravinsky's The Nightingale, the rarely performed The Tsar's Bride by Rimsky-Korsakov, and commendably, Ostrčil's anti-militaristic opera Honzovo království (Jack's Kingdom).

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1888 / Gustav Mahler photo

In the 1885–1886 season, Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) served as the principal conductor of the Royal Provincial German Theatre in Prague (now the Estates Theatre). He guest conducted a performance of Carl Maria von Weber's opera Die drei Pintos (The Three Pintos) on the occasion of Emperor Franz Joseph I's birthday at the New German Theatre in 1888. Additionally, he conducted two philharmonic concerts featuring his own compositions: the First Symphony on 3 March 1898, and his Third Symphony on 25 February 1904. A significant event was Mahler's preparation and conducting of the world premiere of his Seventh Symphony, performed at the Prague Exhibition Grounds on 9 September 1908 by the combined orchestras of the Czech Philharmonic and the New German Theatre.

1895–1936 / Felix Weingartner photo

Felix Weingartner (1863–1942) first appeared as a guest conductor at the New German Theatre during the 1895–1896 season for a philharmonic concert. His timeline of guest performances extends up to 1936 when he conducted a performance of Fidelio during the May Festival. At the New German Theatre, he premiered his own operas Genesius (1899) and Orestes (1909). In the autumn of 1917, the theatre performed Méhul's opera Joseph and Weber's Oberon in his revisions. That same year, his wife, the singer Lucille Marcell, guest performed at the New German Theatre in another of Weingartner's operas, Cain and Abel.

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1896 a 1902 / Arthur Nikisch photo

On 8 May 1902, the esteemed conductor Arthur Nikisch (1855–1922), already a respected figure with international acclaim, guest conducted a performance of Tannhäuser at the New German Theatre. From a position of violinist with the Vienna Court Orchestra via conductor in Leipzig, Boston, and Budapest he worked his way to the post of chief conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and successor to Hans von Bülow as head of the Berlin Philharmonic. He first appeared in Prague on 11 April 1896, conducting a philharmonic concert featuring works by Liszt, Schubert, Saint-Saëns, Wagner, and Brahms.

1901– / Richard Strauss photo

The first new opera of the 1901–1902 season – Guntram – was rehearsed by Leo Blech, but the opening was conducted by its author Richard Strauss (1864–1949) himself. This was neither the first nor by far the last time that he stood at the head of the orchestra of the New German Theatre. Over the course of years he conducted several Philharmonic Concerts here and also his most celebrated operas – Salome, Elektra, and Der Rosenkavalier.

1902 and 1905 / Pietro Mascagni photo

Pietro Mascagni (1863–1945), the composer of Cavalleria Rusticana, one of the most successful titles in operatic literature, which remained in the repertoire from its Prague German premiere on 18 April 1891 until the theatre's closure in 1938, first appeared as a guest conductor with invited soloists on 26 March 1902 for a performance of Rossini's Stabat Mater. In early January 1905, he conducted performances of Aida and Cavalleria Rusticana at the New German Theatre in a double bill with Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.

1908 and 1937 / Bruno Walter photo

On 14 April 1937 one the greatest conductors of the twenties century, Bruno Walter (real name Schlesinger, 1876–1962), stood before the orchestra of the New German Theatre. He had appeared here for the first time already in 1908 with the ensemble of the Vienna Opera performing Un ballo in maschera. This time it was in a Philharmonic Concert in which he conducted Wagner’s Faust Overture and the Eighth Symphony of Anton Bruckner. He was a protege of Gustav Mahler at the operas in Hamburg and Vienna. From 1913 to 1922 he served as music director of the opera in Munich, and from 1924 to 1931 he was chief conductor of the German season at Covent Garden. In 1925 he became music director of the City Opera (Städtische Oper) in Berlin and began his collaboration of many years with the Salzburg Festival. After his departure from Berlin in 1933 he worked at the State Opera in Vienna. In 1939 he emigrated to the USA where he conducted at the Metropolitan Opera.

1931–1935 / Antonino Votto photo

Antonino Votto (1896–1985) was brought to the New German Theatre for the Italian repertoire at the beginning of the era of the new intendant, Paul Eger. Later, in the 1950s, he became famous for his collaboration with Maria Callas. As the specialist in Italian opera he appeared for the first time outside Italy in 1924 at Covent Garden, and from that time on he was one of the esteemed experts in his field, whose collaboration was welcomed all over Europe as well as overseas. At the New German Theatre within a short time he prepared new production of Rigoletto, Cavalleria rusticana, I pagliacci, Otello, and Falstaff, paving the way for a Verdi cycle in the spring months of 1933. A rarity under the new management was a performance of La forza del destino on 5 May 1933 in Italian, as had been the case under Neumann with La traviata and I puritani. The members of the home corps who sang in this production were completely different from those in this opera’s Prague German premiere in 1926; they sang in collaboration with an outstanding baritone from Milan’s La Scala, Vincenzo Guicciardi, in the role of Don Carlo di Vargas. In June 1935, Votto conducted the last Italian season in the history of the New German Theatre in Prague. He presented six operas with a company composed of singers from La Scala, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, and the Paris Opera, along with the participation of local singers.

1935–1938 / Erich Kleiber photo

The Vienna native Erich Kleiber (1890–1956) graduated from the Prague Conservatory and was hired by Prague German opera for the 1911–1912 season as chorus master. His conducting ambitions took him via positions in smaller German theatres all the way to the Berlin State Opera, where after the success of his Fidelio he was named music director in 1933. In 1934 he refused to comply with the artistic dictates of the Nazis and resigned from his position. From 1937 to 1949 he organized German opera seasons in Buenos Aires and also conducted in Chile, Uruguay, Mexico, and Cuba. From 1950 to 1953 he was a regular conductor at London’s Covent Garden. The audiences at the New German Theatre in Prague had opportunity to savour his conducting art several times: once in Der fliegende Holländer (1935), twice in Hubička (The Kiss), the new production of which he conducted in 1937, and a total of four times in 1936 and 1938 in Der Rosenkavalier.

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Aino Ackté, soprano (1904–1905, guest singer)
Magnus Andersen, bass (1927–1938, member of the NGT)
Sigrid Arnoldson, soprano (1898, guest singer)
Alfred von Bary, tenor (1906–, guest singer)
Mattia Battistini, baritone (1912–1923, guest singer)
Kurt Baum, tenor (1935–1938, guest singer)
Stefan Berlina-Skupiewski, tenor (1912–1914, member of the NGT)
Theodor Bertram, bass-baritone (1902–1906, guest singer)
Karel Burian, tenor (1914–1915, guest singer)
Enrico Caruso, tenor (1904, guest singer)
Max Dawison, baritone (1890–1900, member of the NGT)
Hedwig von Debicka, soprano (1911–1914, member of the NGT)
Willi Domgraf-Fassbaender, baritone (1934–1935, guest singer)
Stella Eisner, soprano (1913–1919, member of the NGT)
Wilhelm Elsner, tenor (1896–1903, member of the NGT)
Adolf Fischer, tenor (1932–1938, member of the NGT)
Cesare Formichi, baritone (1909, guest singer)
Gertrude Förstel, soprano (1900–1906, member of the NGT)
Helena Forti, soprano (1910–1911, member of the NGT) 
Mathilde Claus-Frankel, soprano (1896–1899, 1900–1903 member of the NGT)
Tilly de Garmo, soprano (1922–1926, member of the NGT)
Marie Gutheil-Schoder, soprano (1900–1924, guest singer) 
Anny Helm, soprano (1932–1933, member of the NGT)  

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Paul Helm, tenor (1927–1932, member of the NGT)
Harriet Henders, soprano (1935–1938, member of the NGT)
Elvíra de Hidalgo, soprano (1909–1911, guest singer)
Ingeborg Holmgren, soprano (1927–1928, member of the NGT)
Emmy Hoy, soprano (1911–1914, member of the NGT)
Hermann Jadlowker, tenor (1912–1916, guest singer)
Maria Jeritza, soprano (1932, guest singer)
Susanne Jícha, soprano (1912–1930, member of the NGT)
Jan Kiepura, tenor (1926, guest singer)
Alexander Kipnis, bass (1937, guest singer)
Teiko Kiwa, soprano (1926, guest singer)
Hilde Konetzni, soprano (1932–1936, member of the NGT)
Richard Kubla, tenor (1921–1923, guest singer)
Zinka Kunc-Milanov, soprano (1936–1937, member of the NGT)
Selma Kurz, soprano (1902–1924, guest singer)
Lilli Lehmann, soprano (1903 a 1906, guest singer)
Lotte Lehmann, soprano (1919–1923, guest singer)
Edith de Lys, soprano (1909–1912, guest singer)
Otakar Mácha, tenor (1920–1927, member of the NGT)
Otakar Masák, tenor (1932–1934, member of the NGT)
Nellie Melba, soprano (1900, guest singer)
Maria Müller, soprano (1921–1923, member of the NGT)
Hans Nachod, tenor (1916–1923, member of the NGT)
Valeska Nigrini, mezzosoprano (1903–1912), member of the NGT)
Rose Pauly, soprano (1933– 1938, member of the NGT)
Adolf Perluß, tenor (1886–1895, member of the NGT)
Julius Peters, tenor (1912–1916, member of the NGT)
Alfred Piccaver, tenor (1907–1928, guest singer)
Ezio Pinza, baritone (1935, guest singer)
Marie Ružek, soprano (1895–1902, member of the NGT)
Alfons Schützendorf-Bellwidt, baritone (1912–1914, member of the NGT)
Friedrich Schorr, bass (1916–1918, member of the NGT)
Hermann Siegel, baritone (1912–1919, member of the NGT)
Leo Slezak, tenor (1902–1933, guest singer)
Risë Stevens, mezzosoprano (1936–1938, member of the NGT)
Rosa Sucher, soprano (1899 a 1902, guest singer)
Vera Schwarz, soprano (1922, guest singer)
Richard Tauber, tenor (1920–1938, guest singer)
Adolf Wallnöfer, tenor (1888–, member of the NGT)
Hans Winkelmann, tenor (1909–1915, member of the NGT)
Nikola Zec, bass (1912–1915, member of the NGT)
Irena Zoltán, soprano (1930–1932, member of the NGT)

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