Gertrud Rünger

Gertrud Rünger was a German contralto who trained with Hertha Dehmlow in Berlin and made her debut in November 1921 at the Mannheim National Theatre as Waltraute, Flosshilde and the First Norn in Götterdämmerung. She sang in the chorus at Stralsund before taking solo engagements at Erfurt, Gera, Magdeburg, Cologne and Nuremberg, then joined the Vienna State Opera in 1930, where she created the Mussel in the premiere of the revised Die ägyptische Helena in 1933. From 1935 her voice moved into the dramatic soprano repertoire while she kept much of her mezzo repertoire besides, and she joined the Berlin State Opera that year, singing both the title role and Clytemnestra in Strauss's Elektra, and made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 1937 as Brünnhilde. She sang regularly at the Salzburg Festival through the 1930s and gave her final performance, as the Countess in Pique Dame, in 1949.