Annie Dirkens

Annie Dirkens was born in Berlin as Marie Therese Drews. Her father Peter August Drews was an English railroad employee.^[1] She trained as a singer in Berlin, and with Nina Falkenberg in Dresden.^[2]

Annie Dirkens debuted as a singer in 1893, in Berlin. She appeared in operettas, including the lead breeches role in The Little Genius at London's Shaftesbury Theatre in 1896.^[3] "Miss Annie Dirkens sings and plays very nicely as the little genius," a reviewer commented, "and the whole play is got up in such splendid style that it will probably have a good run."^[4] in 1897 she sang the role of the Comtesse Mathilde in the premiere of Johann Strauss II's last operetta, Die Göttin der Vernunft, in Vienna.^[5]

After she acquired the title "Baroness" upon marriage, she continued to perform, appearing in Lehár's Der Rastelbinder at the Carltheater in Vienna,^[6] and in Miss Hook of Holland in Berlin in 1907.^[7] In 1906 she performed in a musical farce in German,^[8] at the Irving Place Theatre^[9] in New York.^[10] She was engaged to star in The Love Cure in New York in 1909,^[11] but she cancelled for health reasons.^[12]

During World War I, she was a volunteer nurse at various war hospitals, and also sang at Red Cross events. She was badly injured by a horse in 1918, ending her war work and her stage career. She worked at a tobacco shop after the war.