Sophie Antonie Luise Schröder (née Bürger) (1 March 1781 - 25 February 1868) was a German

actress An actor or actress is a person who portrays a Character (arts), character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek ...

. She was born at

Paderborn Paderborn (; Westphalian: ''Patterbuorn'', also ''Paterboärn'') is a city in eastern North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the Paderborn district. The name of the city derives from the river Pader and ''Born'', an old German term for t ...

, the daughter of an actor, Gottfried Bürger. She made her first appearance in opera at

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, in 1793. On

Kotzebue Kotzebue ( ) or Qikiqtaġruk ( , ) is a city in the Northwest Arctic Borough in the U.S. state of Alaska. It is the County seat, borough's seat, by far its largest community and the economic and transportation hub of the subregion of Alaska en ...

's recommendation she was engaged for the Vienna Court theatre in 1798, and here and in

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

and

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

she won great successes in tragic roles like Marie Stuart, Phèdre, Merope,

Lady Macbeth Lady Macbeth is a leading character in William Shakespeare's tragedy '' Macbeth'' (). As the wife of the play's tragic hero, Macbeth (a Scottish nobleman), Lady Macbeth goads her husband into committing regicide, after which she becomes quee ...

, and Isabella in ''The Bride of Messina'', which gave her the reputation of being "the German Siddons." She retired in 1840 and lived in

Augsburg Augsburg (; bar , Augschburg , links=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swabian_German , label=Swabian German, , ) is a city in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany, around west of Bavarian capital Munich. It is a university town and regional seat of the ' ...

and Munich until her death in 1868. She had married, in 1795, an actor, Stollmers (properly Smets), from whom she separated in 1799. In 1804 she married the tenor Friedrich Schröder, and after his death in 1818, she married the actor, Wilhelm Kunst in 1825. Schröder's eldest daughter was the opera singer,

Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, born Wilhelmine Schröder (6 December 180426 January 1860), was a German operatic soprano. As a singer, she combined a rare quality of tone with dramatic intensity of expression, which was as remarkable on the conce ...

. She had several illegitimate children with the painter

Moritz Michael Daffinger Moritz Michael Daffinger (25 January 1790 – 21 August 1849) was an Austrian miniature painter and sculptor. Life Daffinger was born in Vienna, the son of Johann Daffinger (1748–1796), a painter at the local Vienna Porcelain Manuf ...

References

* This work in turn cites: ** Ph. Schmidt, ''Sophie Schröder'' (Vienna, 1870) ** ''Das Lexikon der deutschen Bühnen-Angehörigen''

External links

''Schröder, Sophie''
In:

Constant von Wurzbach Constantin Wurzbach Ritter von Tannenberg (11 April 1818 – 17 August 1893) was an Austrian biographer, lexicographer and author. Biography He was born in Laibach, Carniola (present-day Ljubljana, Slovenia).He later went on to complete a co ...

: ''

Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich ''Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich'' (English, ''Biographical Encyclopedia of the Austrian Empire'') (abbreviated ''Wurzbach'' from the author's surname) is a 60-volume work, edited and published by Constantin von Wurzbach, cont ...

'', 31. Band, Wien 1876, S. 321–334. (Biographical Encyclopedia of the Kingdom of Austria)
Lexikon Westfälischer Autorinnen und Autoren
(Encyclopedia of Westphalian Authors) 1781 births 1868 deaths People from Paderborn 18th-century German actresses 19th-century German actresses German stage actresses {{Germany-stage-actor-stub