Elisabeth Mara

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Elisabeth Mara. Painting by Anton Graff (around 1790)
Elisabeth Mara. Painting by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun

Gertrud Elisabeth Mara , b. Gertrud Elisabeth Schmeling (born February 23, 1749 in Kassel ; † January 20, 1833 in Reval ) was a German opera singer (soprano).

Life

Elisabeth Mara was born in Kassel in 1749 as the eighth child of the poor town musician Johann Schmeling ( born in Kirchheim as the son of the tailor Hans Kaspar Schmeling ). Her mother Ottilia geb. Ellerbaum (daughter of a Kassel linen weaver ) died in 1764 when she was still a child. She received violin lessons from her father at a young age and finally performed as a child prodigy in Antwerp and Amsterdam, among others . Influential friends from Kassel, but also admirers from other cities, made it possible for her to go to England for the first time in 1759, where she was trained by the Italian singing teacher Pietro Domenico Paradisi . Travels to Ireland and the Netherlands followed before she was taught singing, playing the piano, writing and dancing at Johann Adam Hiller's singing school in Leipzig from 1765 to 1771 . At the same time she was hired as the first concert singer for 600 thalers and met u. a. with Corona Schröter , who was also involved in Leipzig. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe heard her as a student and dedicated a poem to her in 1771:

The Demoiselle Schmehling after the performance of the Hassische Sta. Elena al Calvario , Leipzig 1771.

"Clearest voice, happy with meaning -
Pure youth gift -
Did you move with the Empress?
After the holy grave.
Where everything goes well
Among the happy
Tear your ruling song
Me the delighted. "

Soon she was considered the greatest singer that Germany had ever produced. In Berlin, Friedrich II was convinced by admirers of Elisabeth Mara to listen to one of her performances. The monarch, who was hostile to German singers, is said to have first watched the concert from an adjoining room, but then appeared in the concert hall, where he then had the singer sing the most difficult arias on the sheet in order to eventually become one of her admirers.

Elisabeth Mara as Armida

In 1771 she was appointed to the Royal Opera in Berlin as the first German singer for life for 3000 Reichstaler . She made her debut here in Hasse's Intermezzo Piramo e Tisbe . Her marriage to the cellist Johann Mara (1744–1808) let her fall from grace with her patron Friedrich II, so that her job in Berlin was dissolved in 1780 after her flight to Leipzig . In the following years she celebrated great successes in Dresden , Vienna and Munich . During her appearances in Paris in 1782, where she was awarded première chanteuse de la Reine (First Singer of the Queen) , a public competition arose with the Portuguese singer Luísa Todi (1753-1833), which regularly divided the audience into Todists and Maraists.

Several newspaper articles in the Augspurgische Ordinari Postzeitung report on Mara's time in Paris:

  • Nro. 80th Wednesday April 3rd. Anno 1782. [p. 2] […] Paris, March 22nd. [...] [p. 3]
“[…] A German Madame Mara * has been here for some time, the music hall is no longer spacious enough to accommodate all the almost innumerable listeners. She came from London followed by loud applause, and has cause to be satisfied with the French, who pay well for their rare art, and wearily clap their hands. * Madame Mara, former Mademoiselle Smelling, is indisputably one of the greatest singers of our century. She attended the great concert in Leipzig twelve years ago with a respectable salary. Then she went into the service of the King of Prussia with a higher salary, and has been visiting the capitals of Europe for three years, where her voice is consistently receiving the loudest applause [...]. "
  • Nro. 94th Friday, April 19th. Anno 1782. [p. 3] […] Brief news.
“[…] Madame Mara, a German, still enchants the Parisian world with her voice, and the French freely admit that this German throat surpasses all female singers they have ever heard. It takes in huge sums of money. [...]. "

Two years later she went to London, where she was successful in operas, but above all in concerts, with minor interruptions until 1802 - she traveled to Turin and Venice in 1788/1789 and 1791 .

In the meantime, it was speculated again and again which city audiences would impress them with their singing. Berlin was again available as a possible destination, as the Augspurgische Ordinari Postzeitung reported several times:

  • Nro. 273. Wednesday, Nov. 15, Anno 1786. [p. 4] [...]
"The famous singer, Madame Mara, should come back to Berlin under advantageous conditions [...]."
  • Nro. 60th Freytag, March 11th. Anno 1791. [p. 4] […] Brief news. [...]
"The famous singer Mara is coming to Berlin again for Easter, with a salary of 9000. [!] Thalern [...]."

Elisabeth Mara divorced her extravagant husband in 1799 and moved from London to France in 1802, to Germany the following year and finally to Moscow in 1805 as a vocal teacher .

Again the Augspurgische Ordinari Postzeitung can report informatively from this time:

  • Nro. 240th Thursday, October 7th. Anno 1802. [p. 1] […] Paris, September 29th.
"Madame Mara, who delighted the ears of the English for several years, whose fame was last eclipsed by the enchanting [sic] voice of Miss Billington , is now in Paris [...]."

Other, young voices competed with her or had outstripped her.

Gertrud Elisabeth Mara

In the course of the war with France , Elisabeth Mara lost her fortune and had to leave the city during the great fire of Moscow in 1812. She went to Reval in Estonia , from where she made one last trip to England in 1819 and ended her singing career the following year. In Reval she worked as a singing teacher. Goethe dedicated another poem to her for her 82nd birthday.

To Madame Mara, for the Happy New Year, Weimar 1831

"Sangreich was your way of honor,
Expanding each breast;
I also sang on the path and footbridge,
Labor and stride amusing.
Near the goal, I point today
That time, the sweet ones;
Feel how pleased I am
Blessing to greet you! "

Elisabeth Mara died withdrawn and impoverished in 1833. She was buried in Reval in the Kopli cemetery. Her tombstone bears the following inscription:

“This is where the singer Mara rests, she who once filled Europe with delight and admiration. This place is sacred to every friend of the beautiful and the art. "

voice

Elisabeth Mara had a vocal range that ranged from the small g to the three-stroke f , i.e. almost three octaves. Her voice is said to have been equally strong within this range and her interpretations are said to have aroused admiration above all for their ease and speed.

“She was equally perfect in the allegro and in the solemn singing; While her strong, flexible, and balanced voice was able to drown out any orchestra, she also had the most delicate pianissimo at her disposal. The artist benefited enormously from her theoretical knowledge in music, which she had acquired with the least diligence, and that, combined with the right tact, never let her become tasteless in her bold improvisations. "

literature

Web links

Commons : Elisabeth Mara  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Horts Breitbart: From child prodigy to great singer. In Mein Heimatland , December 1975, the local history supplement to the Hersfelder Zeitung pp. 210, 211.
  2. ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Goethe's Works , Volume 47. Complete edition last hand. JG Cotta, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1833, p. 140.
  3. ↑ Brockhaus Conversations-Lexikon , Volume 3. Amsterdam 1809, p. 60.
  4. ↑ a b c d e Augspurgische Ordinari Postzeitung (State and City Library Augsburg)
  5. ↑ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Goethe's Works , Volume 47. Complete edition last hand. JG Cotta, Stuttgart and Tübingen 1833, p. 141.
  6. ↑ a b Joseph Kürschner:  Mara, Gertrud . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1884, pp. 286-289.
personal data
SURNAME Mara, Elisabeth
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Mara, Gertrud Elisabeth (full name); Schmeling, Gertrud Elisabeth (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German opera singer (soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH February 23, 1749
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 1833
Place of death Reval