Anna Grobecker, born 27 July 1829 in Breslau (which was then part of the

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (german: Königreich Preußen, ) was a German kingdom that constituted the state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Re ...

), died 27 September 1908 in

Althofen Althofen ( sl, Stari Dvor) is a town in the district of Sankt Veit an der Glan in the Austrian state of Carinthia. Geography The town is located about north of Sankt Veit an der Glan and north of the state capital Klagenfurt in the Krappfel ...

, Austria, was a German

mezzo-soprano A mezzo-soprano or mezzo (; ; meaning "half soprano") is a type of classical female singing voice whose vocal range lies between the soprano and the contralto voice types. The mezzo-soprano's vocal range usually extends from the A below middle C ...

who appeared in many operas and operettas. She was a skilled comic actress and was most popular in "

trousers role A breeches role (also pants role or trouser role, or Hosenrolle) is one in which an actress appears in male clothing. Breeches, tight-fitting knee-length pants, were the standard male garment at the time these roles were introduced. The theatric ...

s". She was the daughter of opera singers Franz Mejo and Rosa Mejo-Straub, one of their seven children, all of whom had stage careers. Anna was trained as an actress by Carl Herbold and as a singer by her mother. She made her debut in

Magdeburg Magdeburg (; nds, label=Low Saxon, Meideborg ) is the capital and second-largest city of the German state Saxony-Anhalt. The city is situated at the Elbe river. Otto I, the first Holy Roman Emperor and founder of the Archdiocese of Magdebur ...

in 1844, appeared in

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

in 1848, and performed in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

from 1850 - 1858, where she specialised in

soubrette A soubrette is a type of operatic soprano voice ''fach'', often cast as a female stock character in opera and theatre. The term arrived in English from Provençal via French, and means "conceited" or "coy". Theatre In theatre, a soubrette is a c ...

roles. In 1858, during a guest appearance in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

, she was seen by

Johann Nestroy Johann Nepomuk Eduard Ambrosius Nestroy (; 7 December 1801 – 25 May 1862) was a singer, actor and playwright in the popular Austrian tradition of the Biedermeier period and its immediate aftermath. He participated in the 1848 revolutions an ...

, who brought her to Vienna. There she appeared at the

Carltheater The Carltheater was a theatre in Vienna. It was in the suburbs in Leopoldstadt at Praterstraße 31 (at that time called Jägerzeile). It was the successor to the Leopoldstädter Theater. After a series of financial difficulties, that theater had ...

in operettas, especially in the works of

Jacques Offenbach Jacques Offenbach (, also , , ; 20 June 18195 October 1880) was a German-born French composer, cellist and impresario of the Romantic period. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s to the 1870s, and his uncompleted opera '' ...

and

Franz von Suppé Franz von Suppé (né Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo de Suppe) (18 April 181921 May 1895) was an Austrian composer of light operas and other theatre music. He came from the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Austro-Hungarian Empire (now part of Croatia). A c ...

, until 1871. Anna Grobecker was the first operetta singer to be invited to perform for the Imperial Court in Vienna, in 1861. In 1865, she made a guest appearance at the Meysels-Theater, Berlin, creating the trousers part of Ganymed in Suppe's '' Die schöne Galathée''. In 1869, she made guest appearances in Paris, by the arrangement of Offenbach, and was known as "the Queen of the trousers roles". She was married to actor Phillip Grobecker between 1856 and 1860. She retired in 1874 and divided her time between Italy and Austria. ----

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Grobecker, Anna German operatic mezzo-sopranos 19th-century German women opera singers 1829 births 1908 deaths Musicians from Wrocław