Anna von Mildenburg

Von Mildenburg made her operatic debut in 1895 at Hamburg, singing the role of Brünnhilde in The Ring Cycle under Mahler's baton.

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.

After 1929, she taught voice at the International Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, but she returned briefly to the stage in 1930 to sing one last Klytemnestra at Augsburg.

Together with her husband, the Austrian author, playwright and critic Hermann Bahr, she is buried in a place of honor in the Salzburg Community Cemetery.

It substantiates her reputation as a first-class singer of impressive power and authority, possessing strong high notes and producing a steady emission of rounded tone during the years of her prime.

See also The Record of Singing by Michael Scott, Volume One (Duckworth, London, 1977), for a synopsis of von Mildenburg's career and an assessment of her singing, and her biographical entry in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, second edition, edited by Harold Rosenthal and John Warrack (Oxford University Press, London, 1980).