Lotte Lehmann was born in Perleberg, Germany, in 1888. She studied in Berlin where her teachers included Mathilde Mallinger. Her début was in Hamburg in 1910. She soon joined the Vienna State Opera where, in 1916, the composer Richard Strauss chose her to create the rôle of The Composer in his new opera Ariadne auf Naxos. This was followed by great success in a number of Strauss’s other operas, especially the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. She also sang this rôle at Covent Garden in 1924. She had sung Sophie in the same opera at Drury Lane in 1914.
She sang in Buenos Aires, Paris, Chicago, San Francisco and her Metropolitan Opera début was as Sieglinde in Wagner's Die Walküre in 1934. At Salzburg, where she sang Eva in Wagner's Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg under Maestro Toscanini, she was a regular from 1926 to 1937. She did not confine herself to the Mozart and German repertoire but sang a wide variety of spinto parts in theatres worldwide.
She left Austria in 1938 and became an American citizen. Her final appearance on the opera stage was as the Marschallin in San Francisco in 1946. She continued her distinguished career as a lieder singer until 1951. She then taught in Santa Barbara and gave master classes in London. Her vibrant, creamy voice was used with fine musicianship, phrasing and verbal colouring. She died in Santa Barbara, California in 1976.
