Austrian ballerina, choreographer, stage designer, and opera director, also known as Margarethe or Margarita Wallmann (or Wallman).
Wallmann received classical dancing education from Eugenia Eduardowa (1882–1960) in Berlin, and later from Heinrich Kröller (1880–1930) and Anna Ornelli in Munich. From 1923, she attended Mary Wigman’s ballet school in Dresden and for a time belonged to Wigman’s touring company. In 1928 she travelled to New York and held lectures there on Wigman’s Ausdruckstanz. In 1929 she became head of the Wigman School in Berlin.
In 1930 she founded her own company Tänzer-Kollektiv. Ted Shawn invited her to teach at his Denishawn School of Dancing and Related Arts in Los Angeles.
In 1933 she moved to Vienna, and in 1934 became ballet master at the Vienna State Opera and head of its ballet school. In 1938, after Austria’s Anschluss (annexation) to Nazi Germany, due to her “non-aryan” descent, she was let go, and she found employment as ballet director at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires and became a leading figure of dance in Argentina.
In 1949 she returned to Europe and became ballet director of La Scala in Milan. Since 1952, she devoted herself mainly to directing operas.
In the 1950s Wallmann worked closely with Poulenc during the composition process and in evolving the structure for Dialogues des Carmélites, with the composer “becoming like an elder brother to me”.
In 1957 Wallmann returned to the Vienna State Opera to stage various productions. She died in Monte Carlo on 2 May 1992 at age 87.
Link to Wikipedia biography