Marie Fillunger

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Marie Fillunger (27 January 1850, Vienna - 23 December 1930, Interlaken) was an Austrian singer.

Studying at the Vienna Conservatory from 1869-73 and, on the recommendation of Johannes Brahms at the Hochschule in Berlin, she first met Eugenie Schumann in 1874. Eugenie was one of the daughters of Clara and Robert Schumann, and she and Fillunger became lovers. Using the Schumann house as a base for a number of years, first in Berlin and then in Frankfurt from 1878, she left for England in January 1889 after a dispute with Marie Schumann. Eugenie was to join her in 1892 remaining there until 1912 when she joined her sister Marie in Switzerland. Fillunger would return to Vienna.

In England, Fillunger established herself as a highly regarded singer of lieder, particularly in the repertoire of Schubert and Brahms. She toured Australia in 1891 and South Africa in 1895 with Sir Charles Halle, eventually joining the teaching staff of the Royal College of Music in Manchester from which she resigned before the outbreak of the First World War.

Marie Fillunger and Eugenie would be reunited in 1919 in Matten near Interlaken in Switzerland. Fillunger is buried alongside Eugenie and Marie Schumann in the nearby village of Gsteig. An obituary can be read in The Musical Times, Vol. 72, No. 1056 (Feb. 1, 1931), pp. 175-176.

Her long relationship with Eugenie Schumann is discussed in a number of articles by German music historian Eva Rieger.