Anna von Mildenburg
Austrian opera singer (1872–1947)
Anna Bellschan von Mildenburg (29 November 1872 – 27 January 1947) was an eminent Wagnerian dramatic soprano of Austrian nationality. Known as Anna Bahr-Mildenburg after her 1909 marriage, she had been a protégé of the composer/conductor Gustav Mahler during his musical directorship at the Hamburg State Opera. In 1898, Mahler took her to the Vienna State Opera, where she established herself as one of the great stars during his celebrated tenure there as music director.
Biography
Anna Bellschan von Mildenburg, to give her full maiden name, was born in Vienna, the Austrian capital. She studied voice with Rosa Papier and Johannes Ress at the Conservatory of Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna (now the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna), and then privately with Cosima Wagner and Mahler. She had an affair with the latter which lasted until 1897.
Von Mildenburg made her operatic debut in 1895 at Hamburg, singing the role of Brünnhilde in The Ring Cycle under Mahler's baton. Then, in 1897, she performed the role of Kundry in Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival, and also took on the mezzo-soprano part of Ortrud in Lohengrin. Cosima Wagner, the composer's widow, became her mentor at Bayreuth, and she proceeded to perform all the main Wagnerian soprano parts at the festival prior to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
She first sang at the Vienna Hofoper on 8 December 1897, when she took the role of Brünnhilde in Die Walküre under Hans Richter.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 26, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q79028. VIAF identifies the subject as 76580387. The Library of Congress control number is n84097719. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1872, 1947, 1909 and 1898.
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This entry incorporates text from “Anna von Mildenburg” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.