Gabriele Schnaut was born in Mannheim. She studied musicology and violin in Mainz and voice at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt am Main with Elisa Cavelti. She received a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes (German National Academic Foundation) and was already active as an oratorio alto during her studies.

Gabriele Schnaut started her operatic career as a mezzo-soprano in 1976 and changed to dramatic soprano in 1985. She has appeared on nearly all internationally important opera houses including New York, Milan, London, Vienna, Paris, Zurich, Brussels, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Dresden, San Francisco, Chicago and Tokyo, the Salzburg Festival and many others.

In 1977 Gabriele Schnaut made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival singing far more than one hundred performances until the year 2000 (Ortrud, Sieglinde, Brünnhilde, 2./3.Norn, Waltraute).

She performed these and other major roles such as Isolde, Kundry, Venus and besides the Wagner roles also Tosca, Leonore/Fidelio, Santuzza, Turandot, Elektra and Färberin/Frau ohne Schatten. Since 2006 she has enlarged her repertoire by roles like Emilia Marty, Kostelnička, Klytämnestra, Herodias.

She sang numerous world premiers of works by contemporary composers, including operas by Wolfgang Rihm and Jörg Widmann.

Parallel to her operatic activities, she has sung numerous concerts and recitals and has participated in numerous CD recordings and video productions.

Gabriele Schnaut has worked with almost all the top-ranking conductors and directors of her time.

She was appointed Kammersängerin by the Bavarian Minister of Culture and by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. She was also a recipient of the Bavarian Order of Merit. Gabriele Schnaut was a professor of voice at the University of Performing Arts in Berlin from 2005 – 2014.