Sack, Erna Dorothea Luise, née Werner

Opera singer (soprano)

born: 06.02.1898 in Spandau

died: 02.03.1972 in Mainz

Sack owed her great international career to the young officer Herman Sack, whom she married in 1921 and who insisted that his wife receive vocal training from a voice coach who thought her pupil was a mezzo-soprano. Bruno Walter (1876-1962) brought her to the Städtische Oper Berlin in 1928, and in 1930 she went to Bielefeld, where she was finally employed as a coloratura singer. In 1932, artistic director Max Berg-Ehlert and general music director Karl Elmendorff engaged her for three years at the Wiesbaden Theater. Her interpretation of Johann Strauss' "Frühlingsstimmen Waltz", which she sang for the first time in the Berlin Wintergarten in a matinee broadcast by Deutschlandsender, became her trademark. In 1935, Karl Böhm (1894-1981) engaged her for the Dresden State Opera.

Her vocal range, which allowed her to sing the fourth c (c″″), is praised as exceptional. In addition to her singing career, the artist also made several sound films, undertook world tours and made guest appearances in America with Joseph Schmidt (1904-1942) and Richard Tauber. In 1966, she and her husband moved to Wiesbaden, where she lived at Händelstraße 10. She is buried in the Südfriedhof c emetery.