Скачать или смотреть Joseph Schmidt : Selig sind, die Verfolgung leiden (Blessed are those who suffer persecution)

This is my 2022 restoration of a recording made by Joseph Schmidt in March 1933.
The aria is from the opera Der Evangelimann (The Evangelist). by the Austrian composer Wilhelm Kienzl. The libretto, by the composer, is based on Leopold Florian Meissner's short story "Aus den Berichten eines Polizeikommissärs" A translation of the aria to English is as follows :
Blessed are those who suffer persecution
for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Happy are you when people scold you and persecute you,
and speak all evil against you unjustly for my sake.
Rejoice and be glad, for great is your reward in heaven.
Blessed are those who suffer persecution...
Let the little ones come to me!
I want to teach you the Word of God.
Joseph Schmidt was small in stature (he was just 4ft 10ins tall) but his voice was magnificent. He was born in Austria but in the 1920s moved to Berlin where he had piano and singing lessons.
He was too small in stature to pursue a career in opera but became very popular in Germany through records and radio performances. He left Germany in 1937 when the Nazis came to power and was very highly regarded particularly in the USA.
Wikepedia states that "In 1939, he visited his mother in Czernowitz for the last time. As the Second World War was about to erupt, Schmidt was in Belgium and booked steamship passage from Marseilles to the United States. Schmidt was rejected at the Hapag Travel Agency after someone else had assumed his identity and taken his ticket. He was then caught in France by the German invasion. He unsuccessfully attempted to escape to Cuba. After making a dash for the Swiss border, he was interned in a Swiss refugee camp in Girenbad near Zürich in October 1942. He had already been in frail health, and was treated for a throat infection at the local hospital. Schmidt had complained of chest pains, but this was dismissed and he was discharged on 14 November 1942". Two days later, he suffered a heart attack and died. He was just 38 years of age.