Opera Singer. She was a noted Wagnerian soprano of the early 20th Century. Born Anna Bellschau von Mildenburg, she studied at Vienna's Conservatory of Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde before making her 1895 operatic bow at Hamburg as Brunnhilde in Wagner's "Die Walkure" under the baton of Gustav Mahler whose lover and student she was soon to be. Anna was first heard at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1897 as Kundry in Parsifal and that same season assumed the mezzo role of Ortud in "Tannhauser"; personally trained by Cosima Wagner, she was to be a regular at the Festival until World War I. Joining Mahler at the Vienna State Opera in 1897 she became a leading and highly paid member of the company until 1917, earning particular praise in Mahler's reading of "Tristan und Isolde". Anna was acclaimed at Covent Garden, London, in 1906 and later as Isolde, as Elisabeth in "Tannhauser", and as Klytemnestra from Richard Strauss' "Elektra". In addition to all of Wagner's soprano leads she was seen over the years as Leonore from Beethoven's "Fidelio", Donna Anna in Mozart's "Don Giovanni", Reiza in Carl Maria von Weber's "Oberon", and the title Druid Priestess of Vincenzo Bellini's "Norma". Thru the mid 1920s she appeared at the Salzburg Festival while teaching in Munich where she numbered the future great Wagnerian tenor Lauritz Melchior among her students. From 1929 until the outbreak of World War II she taught in Salzburg and was last heard on stage in 1930 at Augsburg as Klytemnestra. Married to author Hermann Bahr (1863-1934) since 1909, Anna joined her husband in publishing a sort of "singer's guide to Bayreuth", while on her own penning an account of her time with Mahler. On at least one occasion she was even an artist's model, in 1901 sitting for the work popularly known as "Judith I" by Austrian painter Gustav Klimt. Her recorded legacy was small and as far as is known only one disc has been preserved, an aria from "Oberon" cut in 1904.