Sieglinde Wagner

Sieglinde Wagner was an Austrian contralto who studied at the Linz Conservatory and then privately in Munich with Luise Willer and Carl Hartmann, making her stage debut in 1942 at the Linz State Theatre as Erda in Das Rheingold. She sang at the Vienna Volksoper from 1947 to 1952, made her Salzburg Festival debut in 1949 at Wilhelm Furtwängler's invitation, and created Lady Capulet in the 1950 Salzburg premiere of Boris Blacher's Romeo und Julia and Leda in the premiere of Strauss's Die Liebe der Danae there in 1952, conducted by Clemens Krauss. From 1952 she was a member of Berlin's Städtische Oper, later the Deutsche Oper Berlin, for more than three decades, also singing at Bayreuth from 1962 and at the Edinburgh Festival and Glyndebourne. Her repertoire included Flosshilde and Grimgerde in the Ring, Carmen and Dorabella, and she was made a Berlin Kammersängerin in 1963.