Lucyna Messal z Orkiestrą - Pragnę twoją być [I Crave To Be Yours] Tango apaszowskie z teatru Morskie Oko (Apache tango from theatre Morskie Oko) (Artur Gold – Andrzej Włast) Syrena 1928 (accoustical recording) Polish
NOTE: Lucyna („Lucy”) MESSAL (b. 1886 in Warsaw, Poland – d. 1953 in Warsaw, Poland) – Polish operetta diva and cabaret performer. One of artistic legends in the history of Polish cabaret & operetta. Born in family of a railway man, she managed to climb on the top of stage career of her time. Still in her teens, Messal took singing lessons with the world-famous Polish tenor Jan Reszke and in the age of 20 y.o. she became a sensational debut in the Warsaw staging of the Gypsy Baron in 1909. Strongly and shapely built, with a daring character and strong soprano, which “made the crystal chandeliers tremble when she sung”, as the critics wrote, Messal became a darling of Warsaw overnight and signed a lucrative contract with Syrena Records. She was also invited to perform in Russia, where she recorded for the Russian Victor (The Writing Amor records) and became one of the stars of St. Petersburg’s operetta. In 1913 she and the Polish operetta heartthrob Józef Redo, became the first Polish performes of the “novelty dance, tango” which they presented in theatre Nowości in one of scenes in the operetta “Targ na dziewczęta” (The Marriage Market). During the 1st WW Lucyna Messal was again performing in Russia, and after the Bolshevic revolution of 1917 she fled back to Warsaw and returned to theatre Nowości. Billed as theatre’s “primadonna” she involved herself in a fierce and long-lasted competition with another Polish diva Wiktoria Kawecka, also performing on the same stage.
In the turn of the 1920/30s, along with the appearance of the new Operetta talents in Warsaw - such as Lucyna Szczepańska, Tola Mankiewiczówna, Barbara Kostrzewska - Lucyna Messal’s name started to wane. During the 1930s she opened her own Operetta theatre “Teatr Lucyny Messal” and occasionally appeared in revues in the Warsaw cabarets. In 1938 - one year before outbreak of the 2nd WW - Lucyna Messal appeared in a film comedy “Szczęśliwa 13-tka” (A Lucky Thirteen) in a memorable episode: with her still strong and beautiful voice and accompanying herself on piano, she sung in a small tea-room a slow waltz “Młodym być i więcej nic” 38:33 (Just To Be Young, And That’s It!) [ Ссылка ]
During the war, Lucy Messal managed her own music café in Warsaw, which was located in a ground floor of the apartment building she owned. The building was burnt by Germans at the end of the war during the demolition of Warsaw after the collapse of Warsaw Uprising of August 1944. After the war, Lucyna Messal – whose name was for the communists the symbol of prewar “bourgeois culture” – was still loved by her fans but hardly tolerated by the politicians and allowed to perform only in episodes on stage of Teatr Nowy in Warsaw. Today, one of Warsaw streets bears her name.
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This Apache Tango is one of a small handful of cabaret performances recorded by Lucyna Messal - who was otherwise very prolific in recording operettas and vaudeville. Moreover, this recording is fairly worn-out, yet considering the quality of the performer I decided to upload it, hoping, Lucyna Messal’s performance will reward all the noises. Listening to rather graphomanic story about a hooker who is trapped in a disastrous love for her “master”, who beats her – yet she has no strengths to leave him - one can really find in Messal’s dramatic voice the pain and helplessness of that disturbed woman. And the music of this at tango written by Artur Gold is really stunning!
