Margot Guilleaume

Margot Guilleaume (12 January 1910 – 25 June 2004) was a German operatic soprano, a member of the Hamburgische Staatsoper. She was an academic teacher at the Musikhochschule Hamburg from 1950 to 1978, and was known beyond Germany as a singer in oratorio and concert.

Born in Hamburg to a family that had moved from Brittany in 1789, she first was a commercial apprentice. She passed the exam to enter the Vogt'sches Konservatorium, and was trained for two years to be an opera choir singer. From 1931, she was a member of the choir of the Schilleroper in Hamburg. She studied voice privately with Lilli Schmitt de Georgi. In 1933, she was engaged at the Theater Lübeck as Chormitglied mit Soloverpflichtung (choir member with solo duties). She was a member of the chorus of the Bayreuth Festival in 1934 and was engaged at the Hamburgische Staatsoper for smaller solo parts in 1936. In 1937 she suffered from a severe traffic accident. She recovered, and was able to step in as Queen of the Night in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte at the Deutsches Theater Göttingen , which gained her an engagement there, followed by the Theater Wilhelmshaven  and the Oldenburgisches Staatstheater, where she performed major roles such as Konstanze in Mozart's Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos by Richard Strauss, Micaela in Bizet's Carmen, Mimi in Puccini's La Bohème and Nedda in Leoncavallo's Pagliacci.