Michael H. Kater's carefully researched biography of singer Lotte Lehmann not only tells the story of her life, but also provides a nuanced cultural history of her times. Looking at the cultural scene of Europe and the United States through the lens of Lehmann's career and personality, Kater provides insight into the intricate workings, relationships, and rivalries of the international opera stage, as well as the underlying currents of anti-Semitism and racism. Kater presents Lehmann as an extremely talented and unique performer, but also as a flawed woman who suffered from emotional insecurity and created myths about her past, particularly about her dealings with Nazi leader Hermann Göring. Kater characterizes Lehmann as a series of oppositions: perfection of her art versus fear of vocal decline, lower-middle-class origins and values versus thorough comprehension of opera. She was also generous to a fault, which contributed to her chronic financial troubles.

The book is organized chronologically, with six chapters, each covering a specific phase of Lehmann's life. The first chapter describes Lehmann's youth in Perleberg, Germany, and her apprentice years in Berlin and Hamburg. In the second and third chapters, Kater examines Lehmann's rise to fame in Vienna in the shadow of the economic and political crises of wartime and postwar Austria, detailing her work at the Staatsoper and her marriage to Otto Krausse, a former captain in the Habsburg army. Developing rivalries and frictions in Vienna eventually led her to seek other opportunities in Berlin, London, Salzburg, and Paris, and eventually in America.

The book's central episode is her 1934 encounter with Göring, recounted in chapter four (hence, the book's title Never Sang for Hitler). Here, Kater presents Lehmann's version of the encounter from her 1966 article, “Göring, The Lioness and I,” and her other correspondences, and then he provides a reconstruction of the events based on archival evidence. He demonstrates that in contrast to Lehmann's carefully constructed story, according to which she was a victim and a hero who resisted the Nazis' attempt to limit her singing to the German stage, Göring, in fact, withdrew his initial offer of a contract to Lehmann after she expressed her disappointment over the terms, and subsequently Nazi authorities made it clear that she would no longer be welcome to perform in Germany. One wonders what would have happened if she had successfully negotiated a contract with the Nazis. Would she then have become a Nazi artist akin to Leni Riefenstahl whose later career was always to remain tainted by her artistic contributions to the Third Reich?

In chapters five and six, Kater details Lehmann's life in Santa Barbara after the death of her husband, her involvement with psychologist and companion Frances Holden, and her work at the Music Academy of the West. In addition to her teaching, Lehmann found fulfillment in writing and painting and also tried her hand in film and poetry. Her technical works on opera and lieder were valuable contributions according to Kater, whereas in other areas she was less successful.

Kater does not shy away from the themes of Lehmann's sexuality and her latent racism. He points out that it was common for homosexual and bisexual women to follow and to become enamored with opera singers and that Lehmann clearly enjoyed and encouraged the attention, concluding that she was most likely bisexual. In discussing her troubled relationship with her master pupil, Grace Bumbry, who was African-American, Kater suggests that her criticisms of Bumbry were tinged by racism carried over from Germany. Moreover, he suggests that Lehmann did hold a prejudiced view of Jews, although she “learned to hold her tongue” because of her dealings with and dependence on Jews (308).

At times the narrative becomes too bogged down in details, rather than focusing on Lehmann's overall contributions and, more generally, the significance of opera in European and American cultural life. Kater conveys ambivalence to his subject, wavering between critical and sympathetic descriptions of her actions and character. He acknowledges that “Lotte Lehmann is a difficult person to explain, let alone to categorize” (301) and suggests that she ultimately should be defined by her singing voice and how she used it. However, this assessment is undermined by the book's title, which emphasizes her relationship to Nazi Germany and subsequent mythmaking. The reader is left with a sense of uncertainty as to her true legacy. Perhaps this is inevitable as it reflects the ambiguity of Lehmann's life and contributions, as with so many artists whose genius was tainted by anti-Semitism.