BBC’s Last Night soprano is named after Israeli PM

BBC’s Last Night soprano is named after Israeli PM

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norman lebrecht

September 07, 2020

From Fiona Maddocks’ Observer interview with the South African soprano Golda Schultz:

Your mother, who named you after Israel’s fourth prime minister, Golda Meir, was a big influence?
Yes, she chose Golda because she liked the idea that people had elected this woman to rule – here was someone who stood in the line of fire for her country, a strong name to live up to. My mum’s a registered nurse who studied child psychology. She encouraged creativity as well as a more formal education.

Read on here.

 

Comments

  • Andy says:

    She is wonderful. A wonderful singer and such an engaging personality. Her episode of Living The Classical Life with Zsolt Bognar could easily have gone on for another couple of hours and I’d still have been sat transfixed. Brilliant.

  • HW says:

    It might require more than an opera singer (wonderful though she may be) to rehabilitate that name. But hooray for gender equality in the murder of Arab children!

  • Edgar Self says:

    Three women leaders at the time: Meir, Thatcher, Indira Ghandi, and all at one war or another. It’s the way of the world.

  • MacroV says:

    She was wonderful in the MET Rosenkavalier last January. A pity her fellow South African Trevor Noah didn’t think to invite her to The Daily Show.

  • Brian Jones says:

    The most important thing is she is a really classy singer.
    Why does Israel get mentioned everyday on this site? I have nothing against the place but it just seems a little odd.

    • Melisande says:

      Because the remarkable choice of her first name by her mother and the history behind it.
      See her interview with Zsolt Bognar in the series Living the Classical Life on youtube.

  • E says:

    she was a last minute jump in for a zürich figaro. no rehearsal, mere hours notice, had never even seen the production itself….and sang one of the most extraordinary countessas i have ever heard (i was playing)…absolutely wonderful musician and human being, and could not be more happy for her and her flourishing career.

  • AllesMahler says:

    Thank you, Golda, for a stunning performance at the Last Night of the Proms. I loved your presentation of Errollyn Wallen’s Jerusalem (and that you did not sing along Rule Britannia)!

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