For decades a singer of the Hoftheater in Berlin, she appeared in the first complete performance of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876 as one of the Rhinemaidens.

After voice training at the conservatories of Coburg and Leipzig, she was engaged at the Hoftheater, the court theatre of her home town, making her debut in 1872, as Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio.

[1] At the first Bayreuth Festival, from 13 to 17 August 1876, she appeared as Rossweiße and Floßhilde in the first complete performance of Der Ring des Nibelungen.

[2] During the performance, the singers simulated swimming with the aid of machinery conceived by Wagner, which had presented some initial difficulties in the execution.

After the opening scene was first tried, stage assistant Richard Fricke wrote in his diary that Wagner "thanked them with tears of joy".