Therese Wiet (15 October 1885 – 24 January 1971) was an Austrian

operetta Operetta is a form of theatre and a genre of light opera. It includes spoken dialogue, songs, and dances. It is lighter than opera in terms of its music, orchestral size, length of the work, and at face value, subject matter. Apart from its s ...

and concert singer whose career was based primarily 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 ...

. She was married to the operetta singer and composer Rudi Gfaller. __FORCETOC__

Life and career

Wiet was born in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

where her father was a civil servant. She studied at the conservatory there and then trained as a singer in

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German language, Palatine German: ''Heidlberg'') is a city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914 ...

with her aunt, Helene Wiet who had been a prominent opera singer in

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

and Vienna until her retirement from the stage in 1899. She made her debut at the in Heidelberg as Fiametta in Franz von Suppé's operetta ''

Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio (, , ; 16 June 1313 – 21 December 1375) was an Italian people, Italian writer, poet, correspondent of Petrarch, and an important Renaissance humanism, Renaissance humanist. Born in the town of Certaldo, he became so we ...

''. She was then engaged by the Neuen Operetten-Theater in Leipzig where she sang leading

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

roles in numerous operettas, including the title role in the first Leipzig performance of

Emmerich Kálmán Emmerich Kálmán ( hu, Kálmán Imre; 24 October 1882 – 30 October 1953) was a Hungarian composer of operettas and a prominent figure in the development of Viennese operetta in the 20th century. Among his most popular works are '' Die Csár ...

's ''

Die Csárdásfürstin ' (''The Csárdás Princess''; translated into English as ''The Riviera Girl'' and ''The Gipsy Princess'') is an operetta in 3 acts by Hungarian composer Emmerich Kálmán, with libretto by Leo Stein and Bela Jenbach. It premiered in Vienna at the ...

''. It was in Leipzig that Wiet met her future husband, Rudi Gfaller, at the time a

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

singing with the company and later an operetta composer himself. The couple married in 1912. When Gfaller became the director of Leipzig's in 1926, she moved to that theatre. A critic for ''

Die Weltbühne ''Die Weltbühne'' (‘The World Stage’) was a German weekly magazine for politics, art and the economy. It was founded in Berlin in 1905 as (‘The Theater’) by Siegfried Jacobsohn and was originally a theater magazine only. In 1913 it beg ...

'' noted in 1931 that she could have had international stardom had she not remained "riveted" to Leipzig. The Panorama was destroyed by

Allied An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...

bombing in 1943, after which the couple retired to their house in the Austrian

spa town A spa town is a resort town based on a mineral spa (a developed mineral spring). Patrons visit spas to "take the waters" for their purported health benefits. Thomas Guidott set up a medical practice in the English town of Bath in 1668. H ...

Bad Ischl Bad Ischl (Austrian German ) is a spa town in Austria. It lies in the southern part of Upper Austria, at the Traun River in the centre of the Salzkammergut region. The town consists of the Katastralgemeinden ''Ahorn'', ''Bad Ischl'', ''Haiden' ...

. She remained active in the musical life of the town until her death in 1971 at the age of 85. Her husband died a year later. They are buried together in the Bad Ischl Cemetery.

References

External links

The grave of Therese Wiet and Rudi Gfaller in the Bad Ischl Cemetery
The page also has images of their house in Bad Ischl and Rudi Gfaller in his later years (in German). {{DEFAULTSORT:Wiet, Therese Austrian operatic sopranos Musicians from Vienna 1885 births 1971 deaths Burials at the Bad Ischl Friedhof