presented by Brendan Carroll

With rare archival recordings and film clips, Brendan Carroll presents a tribute to one of the most beautiful voices of the 20th century. The tenor Joseph Schmidt was born in 1904 into a Jewish family in a small town in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, now part of the Ukraine. Known as the “Pocket Caruso”, Schmidt became an international radio and film star during the 1930s but never enjoyed a career on the opera stage due to his diminutive stature. Schmidt attempted to escape Europe during the war but was caught by the Germans and interned in a Swiss refugee camp. His tragically premature death in 1942 was due to the harsh conditions in the camp.