Mimi Coertse

Mimi Coertse (born 12 June 1932) is a South African soprano.

Early life

Coertse, born in Durban, KwaZulu-Natal, matriculated at the Helpmekaar Girls High School in Johannesburg. She began vocal studies in South Africa in 1949. In July 1953 she married the broadcaster and composer Dawid Engela. She left South Africa in September 1953 for London, and then went via The Hague to Vienna. In January 1954 she started training with Maria Hittorff and Josef Witt.

Opera career

Coertse made her debut in January 1955 as the First Flower girl in Wagner's Parsifal at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Karl Böhm conducting. She also sang in Basle at the Teatro San Carlo. On 17 March 1956 she made her debut at the Vienna State Opera as the Queen of the Night in Die Zauberflöte by Mozart and remained with the Vienna State Opera until 1978. Her Covent Garden debut was in 1956, in the same role.

Coertse sang the soprano part in Bach's Matthäus-Passion at Fritz Wunderlich's first appearance in Vienna in 1958, when he performed the tenor arias with Julius Patzak singing the Evangelist. In 1958, Coertse and Fritz Wunderlich again worked together at the Aix-en-Provence festival in Die Zauberflöte. In 1965, she sang Konstanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Vienna State Opera which also featured Fritz Wunderlich as Belmonte.

Frau Holle

"Frau Holle" (also known as "Mother Holle") is a German fairy tale that comes from the book Kinder- und Hausmärchen (Children's and Household Tales) written by Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm (The Brothers Grimm).Frau Holle is the 24th story in the first volume of the book published in 1812.

Synopsis

In the second edition of the book in 1819 they added some details, most prominently the rooster's greetings, provided by a correspondent Georg August Friedrich Goldmann from Hannover. The tale of Frau Holle was told to the Brothers by Henriette Dorothea (who later married Wilhelm in 1825) Like many other tales collected by the brothers Grimm the story of Frau Holle was told to teach a moral. In Frau Holle the moral is that hard work is rewarded and laziness is punished.

The fairy tale

A widow had two daughters, the one was beautiful and industrious, the other ugly and lazy. She greatly favored the ugly, lazy girl, because she was her own daughter. And the other one had to do all the work, and be the Cinderella of the house.

Mother Hulda

"Mother Hulda" or "Old Mother Frost" is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and first published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales. It was originally known as Frau Holle and is tale number 24.

Synopsis

For details see full article Frau Holle

Origins

Marija Gimbutas names Hulda (or Holda, Holla, Holle) as having originally been an ancient Germanic supreme goddess who predates most of the Germanic pantheon, including deities such as Odin, Thor, Freya, and Loki, continuing traditions of pre-Indo-European Neolithic Europe.

When Christianity slowly replaced Scandinavian paganism during the early Middle Ages, many of the old customs were gradually lost or assimilated into Catholic tradition. By the end of the High Middle Ages, Scandinavian paganism was almost completely marginalized and blended into rural folklore, in which the character of Mother Hulda eventually survived.

In Germanic Pre-Christian folklore, Hulda, Holda, Holle and Holla were all names to denote a single being. According to Erika Timm, Perchta emerged from an amalgamation of Germanic and pre-Germanic, probably Celtic, traditions of the Alpine regions after the Migration Period in the Early Middle Ages. Hulda is also related to the Germanic figure of Perchta. She dwells at the bottom of a well, rides a wagon, and first taught the craft of making linen from flax. Hulda is the goddess to whom children who died as infants go, and alternatively known as both the Dunkle Großmutter (Dark Grandmother) and the Weisse Frau (White Lady), elements which are more typically associated with the Grimm's fairy tale as well. Her connection to the spirit world through the magic of spinning and weaving has associated her with witchcraft in Catholic German folklore.