singing a duet from Lehár's The Merry Widow. She had some difficulty, however, when asked to sing at the Lyric Opera of Chicago, being asked to sing the roles of Rosina and Donizetti's Lucia in the Italian language, because she argued that she had not had sufficient time to re-learn those roles in their original language (throughout Europe at that time operas were largely sung in the tongue of the nation in which they were being performed). During the war, her Jewish husband was imprisoned in a concentration camp. After World War II, Sack toured extensively and was particularly successful in Latin America, especially Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, and Brazil (with the result that she and her husband took Brazilian citizenship). However, it was in Canada that she enjoyed her greatest post-war successes and for a number of years the couple lived in Montreal. She later toured South Africa and South-West Africa, and she returned to West Germany in 1950. In 1953, she carried out an extended tour of the Federal Republic of Germany and West Berlin, a marathon undertaking involving over 40 concerts that was followed that autumn by a major tour of Australia and New Zealand. In the autumn of 1954 she celebrated her return to the United States which included a triumphant appearance at Carnegie Hall. She ended her concert career with one final tour of West Germany in the autumn of 1954, a concert at Constitution Hall, Washington, D.C. in 1956 and a brief tour of East Germany in 1957, and then withdrew from public life. Sack also appeared in numerous films produced in Germany such as Flowers from Nice (1936) and Nanon, the latter being one of the most famous operettas produced in this period. Throughout her career Sack recorded profusely, first on acetate, then, starting about 1935, on the new German invention – the AEG Magnetophon. Recording on tape proved to be infinitely superior to disc and very considerable quantities of those recordings were later transferred to long-playing records (LPs). She died in a Mainz clinic on 2 March 1972 following an operation for cancer. She was buried in South Cemetery Wiesbaden. Selected filmography Flowers from Nice (1936) Nanon (1938) References Principal references are a variety of old late 1950s and early 1960s LP record cover biographies. Telefunken has also provided some information. External links Photographs of Erna Sack 1898 births 1972 deaths German operatic