 Marga Höffgen

Marga Höffgen (26 April 1921 – 7 July 1995) was a German contralto, known for singing oratorio, especially the Passions by Johann Sebastian Bach, and operatic parts such as Erda in Wagner's "Der Ring des Nibelungen", performed at the Bayreuth Festival and Covent Garden Opera in London between 1960 and 1975.Born into a merchant family to parents Friedrich Höffgen (1899-1944) and her mother Maria, née von Eicken (1898-1944) in Mülheim an der Ruhr, Höffgen was 17 when she started studying at the Folkwangschule in Essen with Anna Erler-Schnaudt.