Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was born in Jarotschin in the province of Posen in Prussia. Schwarzkopf showed an interest in music from an early age. She first sang in an opera in 1928 when she took the part of Eurydice in a school production of Gluck's "Orfeo ed Euridice" in Magdeburg, Germany. In 1934, Schwarzkopf started to study in Berlin Hochschule für Musik, then she changed teachers and started working with the coloratura soprano Maria Ivogün as well as with Ivogün's husband, the pianist Michael Raucheisen.