Background
De Ahna was born in Ingolstadt, the daughter of General Adolf de Ahna.
De Ahna was born in Ingolstadt, the daughter of General Adolf de Ahna.
He wrote many operatic roles for her, such as Freihild in Guntram. De Ahna was famous for being eccentric, snobbish, ill-tempered and outspoken. Strauss described her as "very complex, very feminine, a little perverse, a little coquettish, never like herself, at every minute different from how she had been a moment before".
In particular, Strauss portrayed de Ahna both as the hero"s companion in Ein Heldenleben and in several sections of Symphonia Domestica.
She was also the subject of the one-woman show Die Frau im Schatten by Dame Gwyneth Jones.
