Gertrud Mara

Gertrud Elisabeth Mara was a renowned German operatic soprano born in Kassel in 1749. Coming from a poor musician’s family as the eighth child, she lost her mother early and suffered a childhood accident that left her physically deformed and in fragile health for life. Despite these hardships, she displayed exceptional musical talent from a young age. Her father taught her to play the violin, and she performed at fairs to support herself. Friends of her father helped secure music lessons for her in Amsterdam and Antwerp, and she soon appeared as a violinist in Vienna, Amsterdam, and London.

Mara’s vocal training began in England in 1759 under Pietro Domenico Paradisi, followed by further studies in Ireland and the Netherlands. She refined her musical education from 1765 to 1771 in Leipzig under Johann Adam Hiller, who taught her singing, piano, writing, and dance. She made her operatic debut in Dresden in 1767 and performed with the Royal Berlin Opera from 1771 to 1779. Her singing impressed many, including Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, who dedicated poems to her after hearing her in Johann Adolph Hasse’s oratorio "Saint Helena at the Cross."

In 1773 she married the cellist Mara, though the marriage proved unhappy. Her career in Prussia ended in 1780 following a conflict with Frederick II. After performances in major European cities, she arrived in Paris in 1782, where she gained many admirers and rivaled the celebrated singer Luisa Todi in the Concert Spirituel series. In 1784 she moved to London, where she achieved great success, continuing to travel periodically to Paris and Italy. She divorced her extravagant and dissolute husband in 1799.

Mara left London for France in 1802, moved to Germany the following year, and in 1805 settled in the Russian Empire, living near Moscow and teaching singing. She lost all her possessions in the Moscow fire of 1812 and, at age sixty‑four, was forced to resume traveling and performing to survive, though contemporaries noted that her singing by then puzzled listeners. In 1819 she briefly visited England again but soon settled permanently in Reval, where she became a music teacher.

Gertrud Elisabeth Mara died in poverty in Reval on January 20, 1833, and was buried in Kopli Cemetery. Her life attracted considerable biographical attention: G. G. Grosheim wrote an account of her life up to 1792, I. F. Rochlitz produced a highly embellished portrayal, and Oskar von Riesemann later published her autobiography along with commentary and her will in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. Based on her autobiography, A. Niggli wrote a biographical sketch in 1881, and she was also featured in the Brockhaus Encyclopedia and the 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

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