Auguste Götze

Although Götze was primarily known for her work as a singer and vocal pedagogue, she also had a parallel career as a writer. Her interest in writing had begun when she was eight years old and wrote a short play entitled Esther oder die Liebe zum Volke (Esther or the Love of the People). She performed it at her father's house before an enthusiastically applauding Franz Liszt. Later as a student in Leipzig she began writing reviews of the concerts that she had attended and some short plays. According to her close friend Ida Marie Lipsius, it was "as if a secret train pulled the child's soul to poetry" and provided a balance to her intense musical training. Her later writing included music criticism and essays for journals such as Signale für die musikalische Welt, Deutsche Gesangskunst, and Neue Musik-Zeitung and an outspoken reply to Schopenhauer's views on music. She also wrote a number of plays (some under the pseudonym "A. Weimar") which were successfully performed on German and Austrian stages. Her first major success as a playwright was her five-act tragedy Susanne Mountfort based on the life of the English actress Susanna Mountfort. According to a contemporary account in The Athenaeum, its premiere in Dresden was a great success with the actors and the playwright receiving numerous curtain calls. One of her last works was a completion of Schiller's unfinished fragment Demetrius. Götze's version of Demetrius premiered in 1893 in Weimar and was later performed in Dresden and Leipzig. Götze's dramatic works included: • Illustration — Title page of Götze's play Demetrius • Susanne Mountfort, tragedy in five acts, premiered Dresden 5 February 1871 (1871) • Vittoria Accoramboni, tragedy in five acts (1875) • Eine Heimfahrt, drama in four acts, (1879) • Magdalena drama in four acts (1880) • Eine Diplomatin, comedy in four acts, premiered Hamburg (1880) • Nur kein Blaustrumpf, comedy in one act (1881) • Hohe Liebe, drama in four acts (1884) • Gräfin Osmon, drama, premiered Dresden (1884) • Die weiße Frau, comedy (1884) • Wera, comedy, premiered Berlin (1884) • Zwei Mal Christnacht, dramatic fairy tale in eight scenes (1886) • Schloß Raveneck, drama (1886) • Alpenstürme, drama in one act, premiered Hamburg (1886) • Im Bann auf Helgoland, drama (1893) • Isolde, drama in five acts (1995) • Demetrius, tragedy in five acts, premiered Weimar 1893 (1897)

• Illustration — Fanny Moran-Olden, one of Götze's Dresden students • Illustration — Ada Colley, one of Götze's Leipzig students Opera and concert singers trained by Götze included: • Anna Beck-Radecke (1861–1918) was a German contralto primarily active on the stages of Cologne and later a singing teacher. She was born in Osnabrück and died in Berlin. • Ada Colley (1872–1947) was an Australian light soprano active in the music halls of Australia and Great Britain and variously dubbed the "Sydney Skylark" and the "Australian Nightingale". She was born in Parramatta and died in London. • Hermine Finck (1872–1932) was a German soprano who created the role of The Witch in Hansel and Gretel and became the third of composer Eugen d'Albert's six wives. She was born in Baden-Baden and died in Berlin where she taught singing in her later years. • Mary Howe (1870–1952) was an American soprano active in the opera houses of Germany in the late 1880s and later a concert singer in the United States. She was born in Brattleboro, Vermont and died in South Lancaster, Massachusetts • Fanny Moran-Olden (1855–1905) was a German soprano prominent in the Wagnerian repertoire and possessing an unusually wide vocal range that extended down to contralto. She was born in Cloppenburg and died near Berlin in a hospital for the insane. • Lucie Krall (dates of birth and death unknown) was a German coloratura soprano active in operetta and concerts in Germany at the turn of the 20th century. She began her career when she was very young in concerts which caused a sensation because of her exceptionally high vocal range. She had the ability to reach notes an octave higher than the normal soprano range. • Adrienne Osborne (1873–1951) was an American contralto who made her career entirely in Germany and became a Royal Kammersängerin in Munich. She was born in Buffalo, New York and died in Zell am Ziller, Austria. • Clara Polscher (dates of birth and death unknown) was a German mezzo-soprano concert singer active in the 1890s in Germany and northern Europe and associated with the work of Gustav Mahler. She was born in Leipzig. • Luise Reuther (1856–1935) was a German soprano and Kammersängerin of the Dresden Opera particularly noted for her Wagnerian roles. She was born in Budapest and died in Dresden. • Antoinette Ries (1875–after 1913) was a German soprano who specialised in soubrette roles and sang in several opera houses in Germany as well as the Deutsches Theater in Cincinnati, Ohio. • Anna Smith Behrens (1857–1906) was a Norwegian soprano who later emigrated to the United States where she made her concert debut in Chicago's Central Music Hall in 1888. Possessed of a high crystalline voice, she introduced Americans to the songs of her native country and for the last 10 years of her life was a prominent singing teacher in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She was born in Oslo and died in Minneapolis.