Born in
Beckum, Kingdom of Prussia as Pauline Dyckhoff, she studied classical singing with Karl Schneider in Cologne and made her debut in 1875 at the court theatre in
Sondershausen. The following year, following a successful guest performance in Weimar, she came to the
Hoftheater Weimar, where she finally joined the
Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach. She later was appointed
Kammersängerin and remained in the ensemble until 1886. That same year she married the chemist Moritz Gottfried Brügelmann (born 24 April 1849,
Ratingen - died 18 November 1920,
Bad Kissingen), a scion of the family that built
Textilfabrik Cromford. At the premiere of Wagner's
Parsifal on 26 July 1882 in
Bayreuth under the direction of
Hermann Levi she sang one of the Zaubermädchen. Further solos as Zaubermädchen followed in 1883 and 1884 and she was known for her interpretations of Mozart's lyrical and
coloratura opera arias. She gave concerts and guest performances at the
Bayreuth Festival, at the court opera houses of
Berlin,
Semperoper,
Hanover,
Leipzig and the
Kroll-Opera in Berlin. Having become almost completely deaf, she died in 1918 in
Bonn at the age of 59 from pneumonia. In her will she left an amount of 150,000 Marks in cash from the sale of a house in Bonn and 17 Cologne-Munich railway premium tickets worth 5,100 Marks for the care and design of the Bad Kissinger Ballinghain, a garden left by the Kissingen spa doctor . She and her husband stayed there several times. == Further reading ==