Anna Christina Schröder

Engraving by IC Maquinet

Anna Christina Schröder (* 9. November 1755 as Anna Christina Hart in Saint Petersburg ; † 25. June 1829 in Rellingen ) was a German actress .

Live and act

Anna Christina Hart grew up as a child of German parents in Saint Petersburg. She attended the dance school at a young age Scolary's that Catherine II. Had founded. At the age of nine she traveled to Germany with her principal Johann Christian Wäser . Since he considered her extremely talented, Wäser recommended the girl to the Ackermann troop led by Sophie Charlotte Ackermann and her son Friedrich Ludwig Schröder . Friedrich Ludwig Schröder, who repeatedly referred to this day as “the lucky one in his life”, married Anna Christina Hart on June 26, 1773.

Anna Christina Schröder initially appeared almost always as a dancer and occasionally had singing roles in the opera and supporting roles in the theater. After the death of her husband's stepsister, Charlotte Ackermann, and the retirement of her second stepsister Dorothea Ackermann , she repeatedly took over their roles. She played the great female roles of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing and Shakespeare , including Emilia Galotti with her husband in 1777 and Ophelia in 1778 .

"Anna Christina Schröder geb, Hartt", Althamburg Memorial Cemetery

Contemporary sources do not give a clear picture of whether Anna Christina Schröder's acting career can be traced back to her possibly rather moderate talent or the love for her husband. In 1794, Johann Friedrich Schütze wrote in the Hamburg Theater Stories that Schröder was just as good as her predecessors. Her friend Friedrich Ludwig Wilhelm Meyer described her performances as "unsurpassable". The writer Jens Baggesen , who saw her as Cordelia during a trip to Germany in 1789 , like Berthold Litzmann came to a different conclusion in 1894. However, all biographers agreed that Schröder was well read and had a good knowledge of human nature and empathy. It was thus possible for her to understand and influence her husband, who was considered unbalanced and easily excitable.

In 1780 Friedrich Ludwig Schröder resigned as director of the opera on Gänsemarkt . The couple traveled to Vienna in 1781 , where Anna Christina Schröder appeared at the Hofburgtheater . After returning to Hamburg in 1785, her husband again directed the opera on Gänsemarkt from 1786 to 1797. Anna Christina Schröder often took on gentle and tolerant roles at the side of her husband as women and girls who matched her temperament. In 1787 she appeared alongside her husband as Elisabeth von Valois in Don Carlos . After retiring for health reasons in 1795, she replaced actresses whom her husband had lost due to internal conflicts, and she also learned new roles.

After Friedrich Ludwig Schröder resigned from the theater, the couple moved to a country estate in Rellingen, where Anna Christina Schröder died 13 years after the death of her husband in June 1829.

The single grave plate for Friedrich Ludwig Schröder and Anna Christina Schröder, née Hart, is located in the Althamburg Memorial Cemetery of the Ohlsdorf Cemetery .

literature

• Brita Reimers: Schröder, Anna Christina . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 1 . Christians, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7672-1364-8 , pp. 278-279 .

Web links

• Biography and portrait of Anna Christina Schröder at the women's garden