Delia Reinhardt, mostly forgotten today, was born in 1892. She was 'discovered' by Bruno Walter, who invited her to join the Munich Court Opera. In the mid 1920s she moved on to the Berlin State Opera, where she became a very popular soprano.
Reinhardt's career suffered under the Nazi regime because her second husband was Jewish; she was an out-spoken critic of Hitler. Reinhardt survived the war, despite her house having been destroyed by a bomb in 1943. With the help of Bruno Walter, with whom she was romantically involved, she managed to flee Germany to Switzerland. and then to America, where she became fairly well-known for her paintings. She later moved back to Switzerland, where she died in 1974.
These excerpts from Act I of WALKURE show Reinhardt's deeply feminine vocal quality and wonderful expressiveness: an ideal Sieglinde.