WOLTER, CHARLOTTE

(1834-1897)

Actress. Wolter became theVienna Burgtheater's leading tragedienne in the mid-1860s, playing female leads in several plays byShakespeare, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, andFranz Grillparzer. She maintained her eminence through the 1870s, expanding her repertoire to include leading roles in French salon dramas by Eugène Scribe, Alexandre Dumasfils, and Victorien Sardou; critics considered her particularly effective in the title role of Scribe'sAdrienne Lecou-vreur. She enjoyed her most popular success as Jane Eyre inCharlotte Birch-Pfeiffer's adaptation of the novelJane Eyre, titledDie Waise von Lowood(The Orphan of Lowood).A splendid 1875 painting by Hans Makart depicting Wolter as the Roman emperor Claudius's doomed actress-wife Messalina still hangs in the Historical Museum of Vienna.

Adolf WilbrandtwroteArria und Messalinaespecially for her in 1874, and it too was an audience favorite—though many critics were divided in their judgment. They accused Wolter of bringing an overburdened "natural" feel to such parts, especially when she screamed in passion. Those outbursts came to be known asWolterschreieand were a familiar trademark of her performances; audiences looked forward to them and applauded wildly when they occurred in her portrayals of Lady Macbeth, Phèdre, Sappho, and Mary Stuart. The screams were evidence of the intensity she brought to her characterizations, a tendency she learned at the Viktoria Theater inBerlin, where she began her career. The high point of her work there was as Hermione in Shakespeare'sThe Winter's Tale, a play curiously and inexplicably popular among the Germans in the 19th century. Her husband designed and built nearly all her costumes; she was buried in one of them, built for her when she played the title role in Goethe'sIphegenia.