Bertha Ehnn

Bertha Ehnn was an Austro-Hungarian soprano who spent seventeen years at the Vienna Hofoper. Born Windisch in Pest, she studied at the Vienna Conservatory under Maria Andriessen and Salvatore Marchesi, then with Pauline Viardot-Garcia. Engagements in Linz, Graz, Nuremberg and Stuttgart preceded her 1868 Hofoper debut as Margarethe in Faust, whose Gretchen Eduard Hanslick called the most spontaneous he had heard in Vienna. She created Elisabeth in the 1875 Vienna Tannhäuser, personally coached in the role by Wagner, and the title role of that year's Vienna Carmen. She retired in 1885, returning once in 1918 to sing Astarte in Schumann's Manfred.