An upcoming presentation will “bring Beatrice Belkin home,” illuminating the early life of this Jewish voice teacher and Metropolitan Opera singer who graduated from Lawrence High School and KU.
Samantha Cooper, assistant professor in the Jewish Studies Program at KU, will give the presentation from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8 at the Lawrence Jewish Community Center, 917 Highland Drive.
The event, “Bringing Beatrice Belkin Home: A Jewish Opera Singer’s Early Years in Lawrence, KS,” is free and open to the public.
“By bringing Belkin’s story to audiences at the Lawrence Jewish Community Center, I hope to highlight her remarkable story for contemporary local audiences,” Cooper said in a KU news release.
Belkin’s family moved to Lawrence from New York City in 1916 when she was a teenager. Here, she had early musical training and taught piano lessons, according to the release.
After high school, she earned bachelor’s degrees in economics and music at KU before returning to New York.
Belkin performed at the Rialto Theatre, Radio City Music Hall and sang concerts in Berlin and Amsterdam before signing a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Company in 1930.
“Headlines in the press of the time reflect Belkin’s continued pride in her Kansas roots, and she repeatedly returned to KU to perform at music festivals and other performances,” the release reads. “She also maintained connections with the Jewish community throughout her operatic career. She died in 1998.”
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