Marie Gutheil-Schoder

Marie Gutheil-Schoder, 1901

Marie Gutheil-Schoder (February 16, 1874 – October 4, 1935) was one of the most important German sopranos of her day.

Born Marie Schoder, in 1899 she married Gustav Gutheil, with whom she lived until his death in 1914.

She debuted in the secondary role of the First Lady at the Weimar Court Opera in The Magic Flute in her native city of Weimar in 1891. Gustav Mahler engaged her for the Vienna State Opera in 1900, where she remained until 1926. She appeared at the Royal Opera House as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier in 1913. One of her famous roles was her portrayal of a "strange, Nietzschean" Carmen. She was seen in the 1914 Vienna premiere of Richard Strauss's ballet, Josephslegende as Potiphar's Wife. She created Esmeralda in the world premiere of Franz Schmidt's opera Notre Dame in the same year.

Gutheil-Schoder created the fiercely difficult single role of Arnold Schoenberg's monodrama Erwartung in 1924 in Prague. Mahler termed her "a musical genius," and she was highly regarded as a musician and singing-actress, although she seemed to be, as one Viennese critic wrote, "the singer without a voice." In her later career, she became a stage director of opera.

She was a well-known pedagogue as well, one of her students being the mezzo-soprano Risë Stevens. She died at the age of sixty-one, in Ilmenau, Germany.

Recordings

In 1902, she recorded for G & T, in Vienna: Two excerpts from Carmen, an aria from The Merry Wives of Windsor, and duets from La dame blanche and The Tales of Hoffmann were performed.

References

• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Opera, by John Warrack and Ewan West, Oxford University Press, 1996. ISBN 0-19-280028-0

Persondata
Name	Gutheil-Schoder, Marie
Alternative names	Schoder, Marie (birthname)
Short description	German opera soprano
Date of birth	February 16, 1874
Place of birth	Weimar, Germany
Date of death	October 4, 1935
Place of death	Ilmenau, Germany