Luise Dustmann-Meyer

Luise Meyer-Dustmann (born Luise Meyer: 22 August 1831 – 2 March 1899) was a German opera singer (soprano), and singing teacher.

Life Marie Luise Meyer was born in Aachen where her father, Friedrich August Meyer, worked as a theatre inspector. He had recently married her mother, born Anna Maria Absenger, who was a stage singer.

She received her first musical education from her mother, who by this time was working as a soubrette in Breslau (now Wrocław). When she was 17 she moved to Vienna to receive further lessons in singing and stagecraft. In 1860 she became an imperial Kammersängerin, an important but largely honorific appointment. Her voice had developed into a powerful precise soprano one, with a good range and a particular pleasing euphony in the middle register. Her intonation was accurate and confident. Her natural gifts, backed by diligent and intense study, matched with a deep sensitivity to the true artistic potential of her various stage roles, made her well suited to portray leading characters, including Norma, Jessonda, Amalie in Un ballo in maschera, Valentine in Les Huguenots, Mathilde in William Tell. There were, however, further guest appearances as Amalie in Un ballo in maschera in Court Opera productions in 1877 and 1881.

Alongside the operas of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Carl Maria von Weber, Meyer-Dustmann returned again and again to the operas of Richard Wagner. She conducted a lengthy correspondence with Wagner who always described her as " soprano". There was evidently great mutual respect. When he was considering her for the Isolde role in the first Karlsruhe production of Tristan und Isolde, the composer told his wife, Minna, that Meyer-Dustmann had a "beautiful soulful voice, capable of anything [as well as] an excellent dramatic delivery", and a great range of nuance.

By the time she retired from the stage, Meyer-Dustmann had also built up a parallel career as a Lieder singer, with a particular focus on the songs of Felix Mendelssohn and Schubert.

After 1875 she took a teaching position with the conservatory at the city's Society of Friends of Music. Notable pupils included Lola Beeth, , Ida Krzyzanowski-Doxat, and Helene Wiet. She gave up her teaching role in Vienna in 1880 when, with her husband, she relocated to Berlin Charlottenburg. Here she lived out the rest of her life.