Marie Wittich

Marie Wittich as Sieglinde
Bayreuth, c. 1901

Marie Wittich (27 May 1868 – 4 August 1931) was a German operatic dramatic soprano.[1] She was a Kammersängerin of the Dresden Royal Opera where she sang for 25 years and was known for the power, vibrancy and dramatic quality of her voice.[2] She created the leading female roles in the world premieres of several operas, most famously, the title role in Salome by Richard Strauss. The novelist E. M. Forster, who saw her 1905 Dresden performance as Brünnhilde in Der Ring des Nibelungen, wrote: "She towered. She soared. Force, weight, majesty! She seemed to make history."[3]

  1. ^ Kuhn (2000) p. 895; Kutsch and Riemens (1994) p. 3222; and Warrack and West (1992). However Kutsch and Riemens report that some other sources have given the year of her birth as 1862
  2. ^ Sadie (1992) p. 1168
  3. ^ Forster (1963) Vol. 14, p. 374