Mary Losseff

Mary Losseff (also Mara Loseff); b. Vladivostok, 13 March 1907; d. London, 3 July 1972. Russian (later, British) singer and film actress.

Losseff was the stage, screen and life partner of the Austrian tenor Richard Tauber from 1929 to the mid-1930s, and Tauber’s close friend until his death in 1948. She was the muse for his 1934 operetta Der singende Traum and his three songs titled An eine schöne Frau, and she also starred opposite him in numerous productions. She made commercial recordings of one solo (Peter, Peter) and several duets with Tauber. She co-starred in four films: Das Land des Lächelns (1930), Liebeskommando (1931), Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten (1935) and The Sky’s the Limit (1938). Her voice was a high, light and sweet soprano – not big or great, but charming, true and technically assured.

Losseff’s early life was comfortable. Her father owned a factory and the family were relatively well off. With the October Revolution, however, the family were forced to flee to Japan, where they remained for two years. They then moved on to Berlin in 1921. Little is known of this period except that Mary bore an illegitimate child, Dimitri, in 1927. This did not affect her plans to make a career on the stage. She took lessons from Bertha Niklas-Kempner and sent Dimitri to boarding school from the age of three for the whole of his childhood. She made her debut at Rudolf Nelson’s Review in 1929, singing ‘Peter, Peter’. This period is described by her then-lover, the pianist and composer Peter Kreuder, in his book Nur Puppen habe keine Tränen.

Tauber was in the audience at the Nelson Review and fell in love with Mary, and her voice, at first sight; he felt that she was the singer for whom he had long been searching to star in his planned operetta Der singende Traum. Initially through his influence, she secured major roles in several productions, including Paul Abraham's Viktoria und ihr Husar, Karl Millöcker's Die Dubarry, Jaromír Weinberger's Frühlingsstürme, Franz Lehár’s Paganini, Abraham’s Ball im Savoy, Emmerich Kálmán’s Gräfin Maritza and of course Der singende Traum. She received critical acclaim, indicating that Tauber’s faith was justified. At this time, Mary and Richard were considered a couple, and were expected to marry.

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