Anna Bahr-Mildenburg

Anna Bahr-Mildenburg (1872─1947) was one of the most important singers of the works of Richard Wagner around 1900. She began her career in Hamburg under the conduct of Gustav Mahler. With the help of Cosima Wagner, she enlarged her repertoire in Bayreuth before going to Vienna. She sang roles like Kundry, Isolde or Ortrud as well as Amneris, Norma, Leonore and many more. One of her last roles as a singer was Klytämnestra in Elektra by Richard Strauss. Bahr-Mildenburg was a 'hochdramatischer Sopran‘ with a well balanced and powerful voice. She was especially famous for her stagecraft.

Besides her career as a singer, she wrote some essays, being published in important Austrian Newspapers. In the 1920s, she began to work as a stage-director, staging e.g. the Ring des Nibelungen in Munich in 1922. She prepared some detailed texts about the staging of special roles – the only one that has been published is Tristan und Isolde. Furthermore, she worked as a professor for acting in opera. There is only one existing recording (the aria “Ozean du Ungeheuer” from the Oberon by Carl Maria von Weber, from 1904).