Milder-Hauptmann, (Pauline) Anna

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Milder-Hauptmann, (Pauline) Anna

Milder-Hauptmann, (Pauline) Anna, promminent German soprano; b. Constantinople, Dec. 13, 1785; d. Berlin, May 29, 1838. She was the daughter of an Austrian diplomatic official. In Vienna she attracted the notice of Schikaneder. He recommended her to Tomaselli and Salieri, who taught her opera singing. She made her debut as Juno in Süssmayr’s Der Spiegel von Arkadien in Vienna on April 9, 1803, and soon became so well regarded as an artist and singer that Beethoven wrote the role of Fidelio for her (Vienna, Nov. 20, 1805). After a tour in 1808, she was made prima donna assoluta at the Berlin court. In 1810 she married a Vienna merchant, Hauptmann. In 1812 she went to Berlin, where she created a sensation, particularly as duck’s heroines (in Iphigénie en Tauride, Alcestis, and Armida). She left Berlin in 1829, then sang in Russia, Sweden, and Austria. Mendelssohn chose her as a soloist in his revival of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Berlin (1829). She made her farewell appearance in Vienna in 1836. Her voice was so powerful that Haydn reportedly said to her: “Dear child, you have a voice like a house”.

—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire