Pauline Lucca

Who was Pauline Lucca?

Pauline Lucca was a prominent operatic soprano, born in the Austrian capital of Vienna.

As a child she showed a remarkable talent for singing and at eight years old became a voice student of M. Walter. Not too long after her parents lost all their property, forcing her to abandon her studies. She continued her education as a young teenager with Otto Uschmann and Richard Lewy in Vienna, but was too poor to continue her studies and so joined the chorus of the Vienna State Opera in 1856.

In 1859, she made her début at Olmütz as Elvira in Ernani. She then sang for a while in Prague and in 1861, having attracted the attention of Meyerbeer, obtained an engagement at the Berlin State Opera, where her success was absolute for years. In 1863 Lucca made her first appearance in England, which country, as well as France and Russia, she subsequently visited often. Meyerbeer and Auber considered her unequaled, and the latter was so struck by her interpretation of the part of Zerlina in Fra Diavolo that he gave her the pen with which he had written the opera.

Lucca had a notorious rivalry with soprano Mathilde Mallinger while in Berlin.