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Selmar Cerini – the Polish/Jewish Jan Kiepura from Breslau

An installation by the American artist Kitty Hubbard, was unveiled in Breslau in 2016 as part of the “March of Mutual Respect”. It was dedicated to Selmar Cerini (1860-1923), the Breslau opera singer and Chief Cantor at the Breslau New Synagogue. Kitty Hubbard used a part of the wall that was the only remains of the New Synagogue. It is now a monument to the memory of the sacred building that was destroyed. Cerini and his family lived here from the end of the 19th century.

The ceremony was accompanied by recordings from the Cerini’s archive, and a song from his repertoire performed by Marek Belko, a singer from the Breslau opera house. This project revived the memory of an important personality in the Jewish history of Breslau. But who exactly was this unusually dramatic tenor

Selmar Cerini as cantor of the New Synagogue of Breslau, ca. 1895

selmarcerini.com

After several adventures Cerini was accepted into the Royal College of Music in Berlin. But his stay in Germany proved to be illegal and he was threatened with deportation. He was forced to hide from the police for several months and it looked as if things would end in catastrophe. But fate took a surprising turn. Patrons came to his aid, including the two brothers, Louis and Gustav Sachs and their brother-in-law Adolf Ginsberg. They were all so captivated by Selmar’s voice that this helped him recover his optimism. He was given a passport and brought his family to Berlin, where his voice aroused increasing public interest.

He began to receive offers to sing. He quickly made a name for himself as a choir soloist in one of the Berlin synagogues, and sang his first opera aria in the Victoria Theatre. This was when he adopted the Italian-sounding name of Cerini, which he soon made his official name. But he never decided to assimilate completely and retained his Jewish faith. During this time he was invited to appear in several opera houses and worked for five years in the opera house in Leipzig. At the start of the 1990s he was offered a fixed contract by the Breslau Opera House where he was received enthusiastically by the audiences there. Performances in all the operas he sang were quickly sold out, and he made several guest appearance in other major towns in the Reich, and abroad.