- Julia Culp
Julia Bertha Culp (
October 6 1880 -October 13 ,1970 ), the "Dutch nightingale", was an internationally celebratedmezzo-soprano in the years 1901-1919.Culp was born in Groningen,
The Netherlands into a Jewish family of musicians and comedians. She was the daughter ofcontrabass player Baruch Culp and his wife Sara Cohen. At the age of seven she began to practice theviolin , and at 11 had her first public violin performance. Her first performance as a singer was onDecember 30 ,1893 . In the summer of 1896, she left Groningen forAmsterdam , where she studied at the Conservatory under renowned former opera singerCornélie van Zanten .Soon after completing her studies in 1900, Culp's singing career took flight. She was discovered by German-American conductor Wilhelm Berger, who took her to
Berlin to perform at the concert hall Saal Bechstein in 1901. Before long, she was performing all over Europe and America, sharing the stage with such notable composers, conductors and singers asEdward Grieg ,Richard Strauss ,Camille Saint-Saëns ,Enrico Caruso ,Otto Klemperer ,Willem Mengelberg ,Pablo Casals ,Percy Grainger ,Enrique Granados andThomas Beecham .As early as 1902 she performed for Queen
Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and in 1903 she was invited to sing at the German imperial court for Empress Augusta Viktoria. In 1913, Culp made her American debut atCarnegie Hall inNew York . In the U.S., she soon became known as the "Dutch nightingale".Julia Culp made some 90 recordings between 1906 and 1924. In the U.S., she made 41 recordings for the label Victor in the years 1914-1917 and in 1924.
She married Erich Merten on
June 29 ,1905 and settled in Zehlendorff nearBerlin . However, the marriage was unsuccessful and they divorced in 1918. In the meantime, she had met a Czech industrialist, Wilhelm Ginzkey, and they married onJuly 23 ,1919 . At that time, she converted fromJudaism toCatholicism , ended her singing career and moved toVienna . Julia remained married to Ginzkey until his death in 1934.In the meantime, the
Nazis had grabbed power inGermany . After the German annexation (Anschluss ) ofAustria in 1938, Culp fled toThe Netherlands , moving in with her sister Betsy inAmsterdam . When the Nazis invaded and occupied The Netherlands in 1940, Culp once again found herself in grave danger. Both she and her sister went into hiding and managed to survive the war. They returned to their flat in the Wolkenkrabber ("skyscraper") building in Amsterdam, where she remained until her death at age 90.In 2000, Michael Oliver wrote in the "International Opera Collector": "You might describe Julia Culp as a connoisseur’s singer. Her voice was not large, her compass not wide. She never sang in opera; striking dramatic gesture were not her line. What she excelled in were the singer’s rather than the vocal actress’s virtues: sustained legato line, remarkable breath control, subtle colour, immaculate care for words….But ‘connoisseur’s singer’ does not mean that only connoisseurs can appreciate her; one becomes a connoisseur by listening to her."
ources
* [http://www.dutchdivas.net/mezzo_sopranen/julia_culp.html Biography of Julia Culp at DutchDivas.net] , featuring discography and sound clips
* [http://www.jhm.nl/personen.aspx?naam=Culp,%20Julia%20Bertha Biography Julia Culp at the website of Amsterdam's Jewish Historical Museum]
* [http://www.joods-leven.net/geschichten/index.php?id_geschichten=200&PHPSESSID=03a21a6ea11d3db9a3240eef8e18be4a&lang=nl Biography of Julia Culp at joods-leven.net]
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