Henriette Sontag

Henriette Sontag, Gertrude actually Walpurgis Sontag ( born January 3, 1806 Koblenz, † June 17, 1854 in Mexico City) was a German opera singer.

Life

Henriette Sontag was the daughter of the actor Franz and Franziska Martloff Sontag, who were engaged in Koblenz. The actress and nun Nina Sontag was her sister, the actor Charles Sontag her half-brother. At five years old she appeared with her mother for the first time; 1814 she sang for the first time on stage. With 15 years of Sontag sang the "Clara" in François -Adrien Boieldieu opera John of Paris. At age 16, Sontag was sent to the Conservatory of Prague; there she was, inter alia, a pupil of François Delsarte.

There she was discovered by Carl Maria von Weber and he made them with 17 years of singing the title role in his opera Euryanthe. In the same year she took with her mother to a commitment at the Deutsche Oper in Vienna. 1824 she sang the soprano role in the world premiere of Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 in Kärntnertortheater in Vienna. After completion of the symphony, she turned with singer Caroline Unger the deaf Beethoven to the applause of the audience clapping to. In the same year she was invited to Berlin at the newly opened King Municipal Theater, where it soon appointed to the court and chamber singer.

In the years 1826-1827 Sontag has performed in Paris and attended every performance for a crowded house. In this, as in her guest appearance in London the writer Henriette of Montenglaut was her companion as a kind of lady's companion and secretary. After her marriage to Conte Carlo Rossi, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia in The Hague, she pulled completely back from the stage. Only existing obligations for guest performances in St. Petersburg, Moscow and Hamburg, she completed yet.

Until 1848 Sontag acted only as a wife and mother ( of seven children ) on the side of her husband. When the family lost by the political circumstances of the revolution of 1848, all of its assets, Sontag tried an artistic comeback. Despite this very long absence from the stage Sontag could easily relate to their earlier successes. 1851 she undertook with sensational success a tour of the USA; it was accompanied by the pianist Karl Anton Eckert. On December 16, 1851 Sontag appeared in Koblenz Theatre. It was the first and only appearance in her hometown.

During another tour Henriette Sontag died in 1854 in Mexico of cholera. At her own request, she found her final resting place in Marienthal monastery at Ostritz, Lusatia. It is located in the crypt of the Cross and St. Michael's Church next to her husband.

Henriette Sontag had an unsurpassed ease and grace, her voice shone through extreme purity and clarity. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe called his fluttering nightingale, Ludwig van Beethoven was dumbfounded by his own admission and August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote for them. From a Pietist preacher following lines have been rumored:

Roles (selection)

  • Susanna - Le nozze di Figaro (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
  • Semiramide - Semiramide ( Rossini )
  • Amina - La sonnambula ( Bellini )
  • Euryanthe - Euryanthe (Carl Maria von Weber)
  • Clara - John of Paris (François -Adrien Boïeldieu )
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