Marie Gutheil-Schoder
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Marie Gutheil-Schoder (February 16, 1874 – October 4, 1935) was one of the most important German sopranos of her day.
She debuted in the secondary role of the First Lady, in Die Zauberflöte, in her native city of Weimar, in 1891. Gustav Mahler engaged her for Vienna in 1900, where she remained until 1926. She also appeared at Covent Garden, as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier, in 1913. One of her famous roles was her portrayal of a "strange, Nietzschean" Carmen. She was also seen in the Vienna premiere of Richard Strauss's ballet, Josephslegende, as Potiphar's Wife.
The soprano created the fiercely difficult single role of Arnold Schönberg's monodrama, Erwartung, in 1924, at Prague. Mahler termed her "a musical genius," and she was highly regarded as a musician and singing-actress, although she seemed to be, as one Viennese critic wrote, "the singer without a voice." In her later career, she became a stage director of opera.
Gutheil-Schoder was a well-known pedagogue as well, one of her students being the mezzo-soprano Risë Stevens. She died at the age of sixty-one, in Ilmenau, Germany.
[edit] Recordings
In 1902, she recorded for G & T, in Vienna: Two excerpts from Carmen, an aria from Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor, and duets from La dame blanche and Les contes d'Hoffmann were performed.
[edit] References
- The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack & Ewan West, Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-19-280028-0
