Born on June 10, 1905, in Leipzig, Maria Elsner made her debut in 1928 as both a singer and actress at the Freiburg Stadttheater. In 1931 she performed at the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm in Berlin and in the same year joined the Semperoper in Dresden as an opera singer. Her “fresh, lively performance,” full of “charming coquettishness,” made her popular with audiences. She appeared as Adele in Johann Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, Alexis in Jacques Offenbach’s L'île de Tulipatan, and Viola in Arthur Kusterer’s Twelfth Night at the Schauspielhaus. Alongside her work in Dresden, she began performing at the Großes Schauspielhaus in Berlin in 1932, appeared at the Theater an der Wien, and acted in films.
Her career in Germany was brought to an end when the Nazis came to power. Shortly before, she had been celebrated in the title role of Erich Waschneck’s The Divine Jette, but because she was Jewish and had refused to sign the ensemble’s resolution against the dismissed conductor Fritz Busch, she was dismissed effective July 31, 1933.
With no more career prospects in Germany, she moved to Vienna, where she was briefly married to the writer Ödön von Horváth, who was persecuted for political reasons. She then worked at the New German Theater in Prague and returned to Vienna in 1935, performing at the Theater an der Wien. After guest engagements in Amsterdam, she managed to emigrate to safety in England. In 1937, she performed in London’s West End, and by 1939 she was living in Kensington with her second husband, the Viennese wholesaler Johann W. Pless. In London, she achieved success at the Stage Door Canteen and the Stoll Theatre and also worked for the BBC.
In 1947, she married British industrialist John Fisher, who had played a major role in the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk. Maria Elsner died on November 7, 1983, in Windermere.
1905 Leipzig
1983 Windermere