Gertrud Elisabeth Mara (née Schmeling) (23 February 1749 – 20 January 1833) was a German operatic soprano.

[1] She was helped by influential friends, and studied under Johann Adam Hiller in Leipzig for five years, alongside Corona Schröter, proving to be endowed with a wonderful soprano voice.

She was permanently engaged for the Prussian court in Berlin, but her marriage to a debauched cellist named Mara created difficulties, and in 1780 she was released.

After singing in Vienna (where she was heard twice by Mozart), Munich and elsewhere, she appeared in Paris in 1782, where her rivalry with the singer Luísa Todi split the public into Todists and Maratists.

In 1784, she went to London and continued to appear there with great success, with visits at intervals to Italy and to Paris until 1802, when for some years she retired to Russia, where she lost her fortune at the time of the French invasion.