Corona Schröter

Corona Elisabeth Wilhelmine Schröter was a German singer and actress born in 1751 in Guben, Brandenburg. She grew up in a musical household, her father Johann Friedrich Schröter being an oboist in Count Brühl’s regiment. Corona had two brothers, Johann Samuel and Heinrich, and a sister, Maria Henrietta. After the family moved to Leipzig, she received vocal training from Johann Adam Hiller, one of the most influential German music educators of the time.

During her years in Leipzig, Schröter met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who was deeply impressed by her artistry. In 1776, following Goethe’s recommendation, she was appointed a court vocalist and chamber singer in Weimar. There she also taught singing, notably giving lessons to the young Christiane Neumann. Her acting skills quickly brought her prominence in Goethe’s amateur theater, where she became a leading performer and notably the first actress to portray the title role in "Iphigenia in Tauris."

While living in Weimar, Schröter attended classes at the Princely Drawing School, an institution supported by Goethe, reflecting her broader artistic interests. Beginning in 1788, she gradually withdrew from court life. In 1802, Corona Schröter died of tuberculosis in Ilmenau, accompanied by her longtime friend Wilhelmine Probst. She was buried in the Ilmenau cemetery. Her memory is honored in her birthplace of Guben, where a school bears her name, and in Ilmenau, where a street is named after her.

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