Margarethe Siems was born in Breslau (now
Wrocław). After early training in piano and violin, she studied singing at the
Dresden Conservatory with the Hungarian soprano,
Aglaja Orgeni, who had herself been a pupil of
Pauline Viardot and
Mathilde Marchesi. She made her opera début at the
Neues deutsches Theatre,
Prague in 1902 as Marguerite de Valois in
Meyerbeer's
Les Huguenots and became a member of the Dresden State Opera in 1908. At Dresden she sang in the premieres for both
Elektra as Chrysothemis (1909) and
Der Rosenkavalier as the Marschallin (1911). Strauss considered her his ideal for the latter role which she also sang in the London premiere of
Der Rosenkavalier (
Covent Garden, 1913). Her third Strauss premiere was as Zerbinetta in the first version of his
Ariadne auf Naxos (
Stuttgart, 1912). Siems' singing style (like that of her contemporaries
Hermine Bosetti and
Marie Gutheil-Schoder) was described by
Michael Scott as "instrumental" rather than warmly emotional. However, she had a wide repertoire which included florid
coloratura soprano roles such as the Queen of the Night in
The Magic Flute and Lucia in
Lucia di Lammermoor; the
dramatic soprano Verdi heroines such as the title role in
Aida and Amelia in
Ballo in maschera; and even the
Wagnerian roles of Sieglinde in
Die Walküre and Isolde in
Tristan und Isolde. Her
vocal range was as wide as her repertoire, with the ability to sing both Zerbinetta with its high
F♯ (in the original version) and low-lying roles, usually sung by
mezzo-sopranos such as the title role in
Carmen and Adalgisa in
Bellini's
Norma. Although Siems remained a member of the Dresden State Opera until 1922, she was also a singing teacher at the
Berlin conservatory from 1920 to 1926. She then taught in Dresden and Breslau until 1940. One of her early pupils was the German
contralto,
Sigrid Onegin. She made her final stage performance in 1925 as the Marschallin in
Der Rosenkavalier in Breslau, but continued to sing in concerts, often with the German singer and composer, Georg Hartmann, a fellow resident of
Bad Landeck, where she spent her retirement years. Towards the end of her life, Margarethe Siems moved back to
Dresden where she died on 13 April 1952 at the age of 72. ==Recordings==