Margarete Klose

She lost her father early in life and had to earn her living as a secretary, until a colleague recommended her to the Klindworth-Scharwenka conservatory, where she got a thorough musical education.

Klose made her début in 1926 at the Theater Ulm in a supporting role of Emmerich Kálmán's operetta Countess Maritza.

From 1936 to 1942, Klose regularly sang at the Bayreuth Festival every summer, where she became popular especially in the role of Brangäne in Tristan und Isolde.

When the great Wagner soprano Frida Leider gave her farewell concert in Berlin in 1946, Klose was her partner on stage.

Klose worked with all the great singers and conductors of her time and was a favourite of Wilhelm Furtwängler, who engaged her for his famous last recording, Wagner's Die Walküre in 1954.