Margaret Matzenauer

Margaret Matzenauer
1 June 1881 – 19 May 1963
Austrian mezzo-soprano
Studied in Graz and Berlin, making her operatic debut in 1901 as Puck in Weber's Oberon. She began singing major roles such as Azucena in Il trovatore, Carmen, Mignon, Waltraute and Erda in the Ring operas and Ortrud in Lohengrin. She first achieved fame in Europe as a contralto and mezzo-soprano, and she was engaged to appear at the 1911 Bayreuth Festival.
Made her debut (as a mezzo) at the New York Metropolitan Opera in Aida on 13 November 1911, singing Amneris. A few days later she displayed her versatility by appearing in Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.Kundry in the opera Parsifal, Matzenauer remained at the Met for a total of 19 seasons, delivering a wide variety of roles including Eboli in the first Met production of Don Carlos (1920), Santuzza, Marina in Boris Godunov, Leonore in Fidelio and Brünnhilde in Die Walküre. She gave her farewell Met performance on 17 February 1930 as Amneris, but she continued singing opera elsewhere and giving concerts.In 1936, she played the part of Madame Pomponi in the Columbia Pictures production of Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.Matzenauer also took up teaching; two of her pupils were mezzo-sopranos Blanche Thebom and Nell Tangeman. Her last stage appearance was in a Broadway comedy, Vicki, in 1942. She died in 1963 at Van Nuys, California

She was married to tenor Edoardo Ferrari-Fontana (1878-1936). from 1911-1917