Pauline Anna Milder-Hauptmann

Pauline Anna Milder-Hauptmann (13 December 1785 – 29 May 1838) was an operatic soprano.

Milder was born in Constantinople where her father, Felix Milder from Salzburg, was employed by the Austrian ambassador as pastry chef; her mother was lady-in-waiting to the ambassador's wife. When Anna was five years old the family left for Bucharest, where Felix worked as translator until they had to leave because of the Austro-Turkish War (1787–1791). After he worked briefly again for the ambassador, the family returned to Bucharest, only to be forced to flee again when broke out there. After quarantine in Herrmannstadt, the family settled in Vienna. Here Anna, now aged 10, received her first formal education which included the German language she had not spoken before despite being fluent in French, Italian, modern Greek and Romanian. She became exposed to opera and church music, and begged her parents to let her receive a musical education. After some initial, and inadequate, teaching by the local schoolmaster, Sigismund von Neukomm heard her and began teaching the 16-year-old for two years. On Schikaneder's advice, she also studied with Salieri.

Schikaneder had opened the Theater an der Wien in 1801 and Josepha Weber, Mozart's sister-in-law, negotiated on Neukomm's behalf for a position for Anna in that theatre. Milder was engaged for 500 gulden, and made her stage debut there as Juno in Süßmayr's opera Der Spiegel von Arkadien on 9 April 1803, aged 19. Soon she gained major roles and changed to the Theater am Kärntnertor for a contract worth 2,000 gulden. In 1805, she sang the title role in the first performance of Beethoven's Leonore, and again in the second and third versions in 1806 and 1814, when in the final revision its title was permanently changed to "Fidelio".Luigi Cherubini wrote his German opera Faniska for her in 1806. She was intended to sing Beethoven's concert aria Ah! perfido, Op. 65, at his momentous Academy Concert on 22 December 1808 (when the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Fourth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasia were heard for the first time under the composer's direction), but following a quarrel between Beethoven and Peter Hauptmann, Milder's soon-to-be husband, she refused and was replaced by a Josephine Killitschky.

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