Jacoba Susanna Holtzhausen

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Jacoba Susanna (Nunez) Holtzhausen (born May 22, 1886 on the farm "Die Post" near Port Elizabeth , Cape Colony ; † April 30, 1974 in Middelburg , Transvaal ) was a South African opera singer ( soprano ) and singing teacher.

Life

Jacoba Susanna Nunez Holtzhausen was originally of German descent. Her ancestors emigrated to South Africa in 1730. Shortly before the Second Boer War (1899-1902), her father moved from the Cape Colony to the Transvaal province and, although he was formally a citizen of the British Crown, joined the Boer forces . Her mother was interned in a concentration camp in Germiston during the Boer War .

Due to the circumstances of the war, Holtzhausen did not receive any regular school education; she only returned to school after the end of the Boer War. From 1905 she studied in Stellenbosch at the newly founded conservatory of FW Jannasch in order to acquire a diploma as a music teacher. After completing her studies, she taught in 1908 as a music teacher at the Witwatersrand University , where her interest in voice training and singing developed. After 1915 she was a student of Aimée Parkerson ; later she also received singing lessons from the singer Wilfried Burns-Walker .

In 1924 she went to Berlin for further singing studies . The South African Music Encyclopedia (1986 edition) states that Holtzhausen studied at the “Cooking School of Singing” in Berlin from 1924 to 1926; however, it remains unclear which institute it was exactly. According to the South African Music Encyclopedia , she made her debut as a singer in 1926 in Berlin's “Schiller Hall”; This probably means today's Konzerthaus Berlin . From Berlin she also made guest appearances in the Netherlands . In the same year (1926), however, she returned to South Africa.

There she went on a tour through the western Cape Province , accompanied by the lecture artist Stephanie Faure , where she received very good reviews. She then performed with the Durban City Orchestra, sang on a tour of Natal Province and gave several concerts in Johannesburg and Pretoria . She then went on her own solo tour through South Africa and Rhodesia . In her concerts she sang opera arias, art songs , but especially folk songs and folk music in Afrikaans . Her repertoire included in particular arias for coloratura soprano , such as excerpts from Norma , La Traviata , Die Zauberflöte , Ariadne auf Naxos and Der Rosenkavalier . Nunez Holtzhausen often sang the mad scene of Ophelia from the opera Hamlet by Ambroise Thomas and repeatedly songs about nightingales in which she could show her coloratura skills. It was therefore called the "Nightingale of the Transvaal". In her concerts, in which she always sang the opera arias in costumes that matched the role, she was accompanied by the pianist Pollie Roberson.

From the 1920s, Holtzhausen, guided by patriotic motives, campaigned intensively for the care of the cultural heritage of white Africans in South Africa. In 1926 she was the director of a children's choir , which performed in historical Voortrekker costumes for the 40th anniversary of Johannesburg . At her public concerts in the 1930s, she often appeared in Voortrekker costumes. She dealt with the folk dance of the white Africans, which she first taught in children's groups and later also with adults. In 1933 a dance company led by her performed at a cultural event in Pretoria City Hall.

She was the initiator and first "musical director" of the Afrikaans Music Club (1941) in Pretoria. She was a member of the Federasie van Afrikaanse Kultuurvereniginge (FAK). At the request of the FAK, she recorded Lettie Jouberts Lentesang at HMV under the number HMV FJ / 43 for the record; she also sang other songs on the back of the recording; there is also Stephen Eyssen (1890-1981), the first internationally renowned South African singer to hear.

From 1940 to 1949 she was a music teacher at the elementary school in Pretoria-Oos, where she worked on a musical performance with the students every year. One of her successes was particularly the performance of Boerenooientjie , a translation of the English musical play The Milkmaid in Afrikaans, in which a children's choir with 400 members performed in historical Voortrekker costumes.

From 1949 to 1953 Nunez Holtzhausen raised Ayrshire cattle on the “Mizpah” farm in the Belfast District in what was then the East Transvaal. At the end of 1953 she returned to Pretoria. Their first marriage had two sons. Her eldest son became a farmer in Middelburg; she lived on his farm until her death.

Literature / sources

  • NUNEZ HOLTZHAUSEN in: JP Malan: South African Music Encyclopedia . Volume II (1986 edition). ISBN 0-19-570285-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Nunez Holtzhausen, coloratura and member of the music committee of the FAK, is born. Sozj African History Online. Retrieved November 8, 2015
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g NUNEZ HOLTZHAUSEN in: JP Malan: South African Music Encyclopedia . Volume II (1986 edition). ISBN 0-19-570285-9 .
  3. ^ "Pretoria had an Afrikaans Music Club, which was under the auspices of Nunez Holtzhausen, a coloratura soprano who was known as the" nightingale "of the Transvaal."; Quote from Alexandra Xenia Sabina Mossolow: THE CAREER OF SOUTH AFRICAN SOPRANO NELLIE DU TOIT, BORN 1929 . Page 19. Master's thesis at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Stellenbosch. April 2003
  4. ↑ Nunez Holtzhausen, die sopraan, is oorlede. uir.unisa.ac.za. Retrieved November 8, 2015
personal data
SURNAME Holtzhausen, Jacoba Susanna
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nunez Holtzhausen, Jacoba Susanna (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION South African opera singer (soprano) and vocal teacher
DATE OF BIRTH May 22, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH at Port Elizabeth , Cape Colony
DATE OF DEATH April 30, 1974
Place of death Middelburg , Transvaal