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Gabriele Schnaut (24 February 1951 – 19 June 2023) was a German classical singer who started her operatic career as a mezzo-soprano in 1976 and changed to dramatic soprano in 1985. She performed at the Bayreuth Festival from 1977, in the filmed Jahrhundertring, to 2000. After a breakthrough performance as Richard Wagner's Isolde at the Hamburgische Staatsoper in 1988, she became a leading dramatic soprano on the stages of the world in roles such as Wagner's Brünnhilde and Richard Strauss' Elektra. From 2008, she ventured into dramatic mezzo-soprano character roles such as Clytemnestra in Elektra, Herodias in Salome and Kostelnicka Buryjovka in Leoš Janáček's Jenufa.
She performed and recorded works by composers of the 20th century and appeared in the world premieres of operas by Wolfgang Rihm and Jörg Widmann. She portrayed her roles with "dramatic conviction".
In 1977 Schnaut performed at the Bayreuth Festival for the first time, singing Waltraute and the Second Norn in the Jahrhundertring staged by Patrice Chéreau and conducted by Pierre Boulez. She appeared in these roles in its filmed version Der Ring des Nibelungen. She performed at the festival in 1980 as Wellgunde in Götterdämmerung, and in 1985 as Venus in Tannhäuser and the Third Norn.
Schnaut was a member of the Nationaltheater Mannheim from 1980, where she performed the role of Ophelia in the premiere of Wolfgang Rihm's Die Hamletmaschine. She performed Marie in Alban Berg's Wozzeck in an authorised version, which was a step on her way into the soprano range.
From 1988 she was a member of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein, from 1995 a member of the Hamburgische Staatsoper, and then at the Bayerische Staatsoper. She made her debut in Munich in 1982 as Marie in Wozzeck. In 1992 she appeared on the occasion of the Summer Olympics in Barcelona, both as Venus in Wagner's Tannhäuser in a Hamburg production staged by Harry Kupfer, and in the role of Waldvogel in Arnold Schönberg's Gurre-Lieder. In 1994 she appeared at La Scala in the title role of Elektra by Richard Strauss and as Brünnhilde in Die Walküre. She made her debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City in 1996 as Brünnhilde. Reviewer Allan Kozinn from The New York Times wrote about her performance, with Plácido Domingo as Siegmund, Deborah Voigt as Sieglinde, Robert Hale as Wotan, and conducted by James Levine:
She performed as Kundry in Wagner's Parsifal at the Wiener Staatsoper from 1996. In Hamburg she sang both the Nurse and the Dyer's Wife in Die Frau ohne Schatten by Richard Strauss. In Munich, she appeared as Elektra in a production staged by Herbert Wernicke, identifying with the role. In 2000, she was Brünnhilde in Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival. She performed the title roles of Puccini's Tosca and Turandot, recorded on DVD at the Salzburg Festival in 2002.
In 1997, the magazine Die Deutsche Bühne named her "the only real dramatic singer-actor of our time ("die einzige, echte hochdramatische Sängerdarstellerin unserer Zeit"), for her "impressive stage presence, based on scenic detailed work and psychological insight in her characters".
Schnaut appeared as Euphrat in the world premiere of Jörg Widmann's Babylon in October 2012, conducted by Kent Nagano. In 2013 she portrayed the desperate character of the sacristan Kostelnicka Buryjovka in Janáček's Jenufa like a heroine from Greek tragedy, but with tentative gestures of affection, as a review noted. She appeared at the Staatsoper Berlin, in the Schillertheater, in 2014 as Widow Begbick in Weill's Aufstieg und Fall der Stadt Mahagonny, and a reviewer noted that she "sang with relish and dramatic conviction and the rough quality of her aging voice was an excellent match for hard-edged sentimentality of Weill's music". In 2019 she portrayed Herodias at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as a distinctive character profile.
Schnaut died on 19 June 2023, at age 72, after a short severe illness.
Schnaut recorded Leonore in Beethoven's Fidelio with Christoph von Dohnányi (1990). A review devotes a paragraph to her performance, noting:
Schnaut recorded Brünnhilde in Die Walküre with Dohnányi and the Cleveland Orchestra for Decca. Alan Blyth wrote:
Schnaut appeared as Jocasta in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex with Paavo Järvi, Ortrud in Lohengrin on a DVD of the Bayreuth Festival with Peter Schneider (1990) and Puccini's Turandot on a DVD of the Salzburg Festival with Valery Gergiev (2002).
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