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. == References ==