Johanna Sophie Christiane Löwe (1815–1866) was a German opera

Opera

Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...

 soprano

Soprano

A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...

, active mainly in Vienna and Berlin. She was one of the most famous German opera singers of her time.

Life and career

Sophie Löwe was born on 24 March 1815 in Oldenburg

Oldenburg

Oldenburg is an independent city in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated in the western part of the state between the cities of Bremen and Groningen, Netherlands, at the Hunte river. It has a population of 160,279 which makes it the fourth biggest city in Lower Saxony after Hanover, Braunschweig...

, daughter of the actor Ferdinand Löwe (1787–1832). From 1831, she studied in Vienna under Giuseppe Ciccimarra

Giuseppe Ciccimarra

Giuseppe Ciccimarra was an Italian tenor, closely associated with Rossini roles.-Career:Ciccimarra was born in Altamura...

. 1832 she debuted at the Kärntnertortheater. After a tour through northern Germany she got an engagement at the Berlin Court Opera

Berlin State Opera

The Staatsoper Unter den Linden is a German opera company. Its permanent home is the opera house on the Unter den Linden boulevard in the Mitte district of Berlin, which also hosts the Staatskapelle Berlin orchestra.-Early years:...

 in 1837.

Her most prominent performances were as the title character in Gaetano Donizetti

Gaetano Donizetti

Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...

's Maria Padilla

Maria Padilla

Maria Padilla is a melodramma, or opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Gaetano Rossi and the composer wrote the Italian libretto after François Ancelot's play. It premiered on December 26, 1841 at La Scala, Milan...

(Milan, 1841), as Elvira in Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Verdi

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...

's Ernani

Ernani

Ernani is an operatic dramma lirico in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave, based on the play Hernani by Victor Hugo. The first production took place at La Fenice Theatre, Venice on 9 March 1844...

(Venice, 1844), and as Odabella in Verdi's Attila

Attila (opera)

Attila is an opera in a prologue and three acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the play Attila, König der Hunnen by Friedrich Ludwig Zacharias Werner. Initially, Verdi had enlisted Francesco Maria Piave to prepare the libretto, after Verdi's own scenario...

(Venice, 1846). She clashed with Verdi over Ernani, to the point where he left Venice without paying her a customary visit. However, her skills were such that, nonetheless, Verdi wrote a major role for her in Attila two years later and highly praised her performance in it.

In 1848 she married Prince Friedrich Adalbert of Liechtenstein

Princely Family of Liechtenstein

The Liechtenstein dynasty, from which the principality takes its name, is the family which reigns by constitutional, hereditary right over the nation of Liechtenstein...

, the fourth son of Johann I Joseph, Prince of Liechtenstein. She died on 29 November 1866 in Pest.