Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Christa Ludwig (born 16 March 1928) is a retired German mezzo-soprano, distinguished for her performances of opera, Lieder, oratorio and other major religious works like masses and passions, and solos contained in symphonic literature. Her career spanned from the late 1940s until the early 1990s. Ludwig was born in Berlin to a musical family; her father, Anton Ludwig, was a tenor and an operatic administrator, her mother, the mezzo-soprano Eugenie Besalla-Ludwig who sang the Aachen Opera during Herbert von Karajan's period as conductor. Ludwig's first voice teacher was her mother. Ludwig made her debut in 1946 at the age of 18 as Orlovsky in Die Fledermaus at Frankfurt, where she sang until 1952.