Lankow, Anna

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Lankow, Anna

Lankow, Anna, noted German contralto and singing teacher; b. Bonn, Jan. 13, 1850; d. there, March 19, 1908. She studied singing in Cologne, Leipzig, and Dresden. She began her career as a concert singer, then was engaged as a contralto in the Weimar Opera. However, because she had been lame since childhood, she was forced to abandon the stage. In 1883 she married the sculptor Paul Pietsch of Berlin; after his death in 1885, she went to in N.Y. as a singing teacher, subsequently returning to Germany. She publ. a treatise, Die Wissenschaft des Kunstgesangs (1899; in Ger. and Eng.).

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire