The Austrian soprano Marie Wilt was born in Vienna in 1883. She made her début in Graz in 1865, singing the rôle of Donna Anna in Mozart's Don Giovanni. Her beautiful and technically remarkable voice ensured her a highly successful international career, despite the fact that she was neither very intelligent nor talented dramatically.
A year after her début she was engaged to sing in the 1867 season in Vienna, where she continued to appear for the next ten years. In 1869 she sang Donna Elvira (also in Don Giovanni) on the opening night of the Vienna Opera. In 1874 she returned to sing the first Aida there, in Verdi's opera of the same name.
In the 1866/7 season at Covent Garden she sang the title-r├┤le in Bellini's Norma, under the name of Maria Vilda. She returned in the 1874/5 season to recreate the same r├┤le.
In 1878 she was invited to sing the r├┤le of Br├╝nnhilde in Wagner's Ring cycle at Leipzig. In 1884 she returned to Vienna, where she sang Donna Anna in the centenary performances of Mozart's opera.
All her life sheΓÇÖd been overweight and had lived with sniggers from colleagues and audiences. In 1891, at the age of fifty-eight, she fell in love with a man many years her junior, who rejected her because of her appearance. Unable to face life without him, she threw herself out of a fourth floor window and died.
