Sophie Schröder
Quick Facts
Biography
Sophie Antonie Luise Schröder (February 23, 1781 - February 25, 1868), was a German actress.
She was born at Paderborn, the daughter of an actor, Gottfried Bürger. She made her first appearance in opera at St Petersburg, in 1793. On Kotzebue's recommendation she was engaged for the Vienna Court theatre in 1798, and here and in Munich and Hamburg she won great successes in tragic roles like Marie Stuart, Phèdre, Merope, Lady Macbeth, and Isabella in The Bride of Messina, which gave her the reputation of being "the German Siddons."
She retired in 1840 and lived in Augsburg and Munich until her death in 1868. She had married, in 1795, an actor, Stollmers (properly Smets), from whom she separated in 1799. In 1804 she married the tenor Friedrich Schröder, and on his death in 1825, an actor, Wilhelm Kunst. Schröder's eldest daughter was the opera singer, Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient.