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Selma Kurz
Selma Kurz (15 October 1874 – 10 May 1933) was an Austrian coloratura soprano known for her brilliant coloratura technique.
Selma Kurz was born in Bielsko-Biała to a very humble Jewish family of eleven children. She grew up in Bielitz. While still a girl, she was taken to a convent to be trained as a seamstress. The nuns quickly discovered the beauty of her voice and she also often sang in the local synagogue.
These circumstances led local people to raise some money so that she could go to Vienna and audition for Professor Gänsbacher, a prominent vocal teacher who did not teach women, but wrote important letters of recommendation. Little Selma was thus enabled to visit the imposing Schloss Totis, the Viennese residence, en villéggiature, of the famous patron of the arts count Nicholas (Miklós) Esterházy de Galántha, who agreed to pay for her lessons with another prominent vocal pedagogue, Johannes Ress.
Once her career was established, Kurz consulted world-renowned voice teachers Jean de Reszke in Nice and Mathilde Marchesi in Paris, as well as the soprano Felicie Kaschowska in Vienna. She nonetheless regarded herself primarily as a pupil of Ress.
She was first heard in Vienna at a student concert of Ress pupils on 22 March 1895. She got good notices and offers poured from many opera houses, especially the ones in provincial Germany, which were always looking for new talent. She made her début in the title role of Ambroise Thomas's opera Mignon at the Hamburg Stadttheater, on 12 May 1895. She appeared there and at Frankfurt am Main for the next four seasons, singing diverse roles including Eudoxie in Halévy's La Juive, Elisabeth in Wagner's Tannhäuser and Bizet's Carmen.
Gustav Mahler, music director of the Vienna Imperial and Royal Court Opera, heard Kurz in Frankfurt towards the end of 1898 and asked her to audition for him. He immediately offered her a contract and she made her début at the theatre that would become her artistic and spiritual home, also as Mignon, on 3 September 1899.
Her success in Vienna was swift and total, and lasted to the end of her musical career, thirty years later. Mahler himself, hearing her perfect trill and wonderfully placed high notes in Leonora's Act IV aria in Il trovatore, suggested that she ought to study the Hochkoloratur repertory, in which she would become the Hofoper's prima donna assoluta.
The Court Opera director carefully introduced her to this repertoire by letting her sing Rosina (in The Barber of Seville), the pages Urbain in Les Huguenots and Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, Juliette and Martha; but she soon moved on to Elvira in Ernani, Lakmé, Konstanze, Gilda, Violetta (in La traviata) and, last but not least, Lucia di Lammermoor.
Selma Kurz
Selma Kurz (15 October 1874 – 10 May 1933) was an Austrian coloratura soprano known for her brilliant coloratura technique.
Selma Kurz was born in Bielsko-Biała to a very humble Jewish family of eleven children. She grew up in Bielitz. While still a girl, she was taken to a convent to be trained as a seamstress. The nuns quickly discovered the beauty of her voice and she also often sang in the local synagogue.
These circumstances led local people to raise some money so that she could go to Vienna and audition for Professor Gänsbacher, a prominent vocal teacher who did not teach women, but wrote important letters of recommendation. Little Selma was thus enabled to visit the imposing Schloss Totis, the Viennese residence, en villéggiature, of the famous patron of the arts count Nicholas (Miklós) Esterházy de Galántha, who agreed to pay for her lessons with another prominent vocal pedagogue, Johannes Ress.
Once her career was established, Kurz consulted world-renowned voice teachers Jean de Reszke in Nice and Mathilde Marchesi in Paris, as well as the soprano Felicie Kaschowska in Vienna. She nonetheless regarded herself primarily as a pupil of Ress.
She was first heard in Vienna at a student concert of Ress pupils on 22 March 1895. She got good notices and offers poured from many opera houses, especially the ones in provincial Germany, which were always looking for new talent. She made her début in the title role of Ambroise Thomas's opera Mignon at the Hamburg Stadttheater, on 12 May 1895. She appeared there and at Frankfurt am Main for the next four seasons, singing diverse roles including Eudoxie in Halévy's La Juive, Elisabeth in Wagner's Tannhäuser and Bizet's Carmen.
Gustav Mahler, music director of the Vienna Imperial and Royal Court Opera, heard Kurz in Frankfurt towards the end of 1898 and asked her to audition for him. He immediately offered her a contract and she made her début at the theatre that would become her artistic and spiritual home, also as Mignon, on 3 September 1899.
Her success in Vienna was swift and total, and lasted to the end of her musical career, thirty years later. Mahler himself, hearing her perfect trill and wonderfully placed high notes in Leonora's Act IV aria in Il trovatore, suggested that she ought to study the Hochkoloratur repertory, in which she would become the Hofoper's prima donna assoluta.
The Court Opera director carefully introduced her to this repertoire by letting her sing Rosina (in The Barber of Seville), the pages Urbain in Les Huguenots and Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, Juliette and Martha; but she soon moved on to Elvira in Ernani, Lakmé, Konstanze, Gilda, Violetta (in La traviata) and, last but not least, Lucia di Lammermoor.
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