Anna Milder-Hauptmann

Her career spanned a remarkable period in Western classical music: early on, she sang for Joseph Haydn; she later premiered some songs by Franz Schubert; and toward the end of career sang in the celebrated revival of J. S. Bach's Saint Matthew Passion under the direction of Felix Mendelssohn.

Here Anna, now aged 10, received her first formal education which included the German language she had not spoken before despite being fluent in French, Italian, modern Greek and Romanian.

Schikaneder had opened the Theater an der Wien in 1801 and Josepha Weber, Mozart's sister-in-law, negotiated on Neukomm's behalf for a position for Anna in that theatre.

Milder was engaged for 500 florins, and made her stage debut there as Juno in Süßmayr's opera Der Spiegel von Arkadien on 9 April 1803, aged 19.

[4] He was so impressed by her performance in Martín's opera Una cosa rara and other works that he invited her to Paris, but she refused due to her impending marriage to Viennese jeweler Peter Hauptmann in 1810.

Accompanied by her sister Jeanette Antonie Bürde, an accomplished composer and pianist, she travelled to Berlin in May 1815 where she would stay for the next 14 years.

Milder had a substantial influence on the final 1814 form of the opera in demanding modifications to her extended scena in Act 1.

Winton Dean writes, "Milder later told Anton Schindler that she had severe struggles with Beethoven over 'the unbeautiful, unsingable passages [the Act 1 scena], unsuited to her voice'."

65, at his momentous Academy Concert on 22 December 1808 (when the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Fourth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasia were heard for the first time under the composer's direction), but following a quarrel between Beethoven and Peter Hauptmann, Milder's soon-to-be husband, she refused and was replaced (disastrously) by a Dem.

[14] Beethoven admired Milder very much and sought to create a new opera that would again feature her in a prominent role, even after she moved to Berlin in 1816 (where she was again very successful in the local production of Fidelio).

Milder spoke to the deaf Beethoven's nephew Karl, who wrote down what she said in the composer's conversation book, still preserved today.

[20] Among the more notable works are: Kreutzer wrote his monodrama Adele von Budoy (1821, in 1823 revived as Cordelia with Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient) for Milder.

[21] Franz Schubert wrote the lied "Der Hirt auf dem Felsen", D. 965, for Milder-Hauptmann which she premiered in Riga on 10 February 1830 and later that year also sang in Berlin.