Gabriele Schnaut (24 February 1951 – 19 June 2023) was a German classical singer who started her operatic career as a mezzo-soprano in 1976 and changed to dramatic soprano in 1985.

From 2008, she ventured into dramatic mezzo-soprano character roles such as Klytämnestra in Elektra, Herodias in Salome and Kostelnicka Buryjovka in Leoš Janáček's Jenufa.

She performed and recorded works by composers of the 20th century and appeared in the world premieres of operas by Wolfgang Rihm and Jörg Widmann.

[3] In 1977 Schnaut performed at the Bayreuth Festival for the first time, singing Waltraute and the Second Norn in the Jahrhundertring staged by Patrice Chéreau and conducted by Pierre Boulez.

[10] In 1992 she appeared on the occasion of the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, both as Venus in Wagner's Tannhäuser in a Hamburg production staged by Harry Kupfer,[11] and in the role of Waldvogel in Arnold Schönberg's Gurre-Lieder.

[4][12] Reviewer Allan Kozinn from The New York Times wrote about her performance, with Plácido Domingo as Siegmund, Deborah Voigt as Sieglinde, Robert Hale as Wotan, and conducted by James Levine: "Gabriele Schnaut, a German soprano making her Met debut as Brünnhilde, gave a performance that was not unblemished vocally, but her characterization was so finely detailed that one happily overlooked the few flaws.

Ms. Schnaut's Brünnhilde undergoes a real transformation: she is unusually spirited in her second-act discussions with Wotan, thoroughly regal at the start of her encounter with Siegmund and disconsolate, but not entirely repentant, in the finale, when she is condemned to life as a mortal.

[9] In Munich she appeared as Emilia Marty in Janáček's Věc Makropulos and mezzo roles Klytämnestra in Elektra and Herodias in Salome.

In 2006 she sang the premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's Das Gehege,[11] a monodrama commissioned by the State Opera to be combined in a double bill with Salome, both directed by William Friedkin.

[18] In 2013 she portrayed the desperate character of the sacristan Kostelnicka Buryjovka in Janáček's Jenufa like a heroine from ancient tragedy, but with tentative gestures of affection, as a review noted.

A review devotes a paragraph to her performance, noting: Her vocal acting is excellent: an example is her eruption after the on-stage plotting ... She starts with steady, controlled recitative before moving into her truly dramatic soprano with some fairly horrible leaps which she hits well.

Alan Blyth wrote: Bright and forceful in her war cry, she shows suitable concern at her father's distress, is wise and dignified in her colloquy with Siegmund, the phrase starting "So wenig achtest du" as inward as it should be.

Even better is the phrase later in the scene, "zu lieben, was du geliebt", where Schnaut's basically bright tone takes on a softer timbre.