When Landau arrived for her first league lecture on October 26, 1933, the assigned building, the Logenhaus in West Berlin, was surrounded by police officers. They had been called to deal with the large crowd. The hall, a rather small space, was filled to capacity and overflowing; the league audience was remarkably excited to hear Landau. So much for advice at the time that Jewish women should avoid the spotlight, become invisible.

Landau's topic was “Offenbach and Operetta.” This was Landau's choice, and Singer trusted her judgment despite criticism from within the league. Some believed the lecture, with its focus on light opera, set the wrong tone, offering members entertainment rather than high art. The only instruction Singer gave Landau was that she avoid any political digression. Such conversation could put everyone “in danger.” With just this guidance and early disapproval, Landau would try to fulfill her new audience's high expectations. And, somehow, that first night, she would exceed them. After her talk the prominent Berlin doctor Alfred Bruck wrote to a local government official pointing to her lecture as a sign of the league's promise. For Landau's future presentations, league management would be better prepared. She would always speak in larger halls and repeat her lectures as often as possible. With this demand and proper accommodation, she was assigned and gave 40 percent of all the lectures in the Berlin League. Why such popularity? Musicological lectures today hardly command such attention. But a reporter for the Jüdische Rundschau, a German Jewish newspaper, described an evening with Landau as “magic.” Why?

Landau's lectures included live musical illustrations, and they made use of the best musicians available. Some became her regular performers, including Mascha Benya, a folk singer, who became a good friend and featured singer in the league's opera productions (she further supplemented her income by giving Hebrew lessons to those who worked to immigrate to Palestine); pianist Wolfgang Rosé, son of cellist Eduard Rosé, a founding member of the prominent and long-lasting Rosé Quartet; and, of course, Landau's friend Lechner. When Lechner left for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Wilhelm Guttmann began singing on Landau's programs.