South African opera icon and Vienna State Opera star Mimi Coertse died in Pretoria on Monday evening. She was 93 years old.
Born Maria Sophia Coertse, Mimi became one of South Africa’s most celebrated classical musicians and the youngest permanent member of the Vienna State Opera.
Born in Durban on 12 June 1932, Coertse rose from modest beginnings to international stardom, captivating audiences across Europe and South Africa with her coloratura soprano voice. Her career spanned more than five decades, with 468 performances at the Vienna State Opera between 1956 and 1978.
After matriculating at Helpmekaar Girls High School in Johannesburg, Coertse began vocal studies in 1949 with Aimee Parkerson. She made her South African debut on 11 December 1951, performing in Handel’s Messiah at Johannesburg City Hall.
In 1954, she left South Africa for Europe, settling in Vienna where she studied with Maria Hittorff and Josef Witt at the Vienna Academy of Music and Performing Arts. Her European debut came in January 1955 when she performed as the First Flower Maiden in Wagner’s Parsifal at Teatro San Carlo in Naples during a Vienna State Opera tour conducted by Karl Böhm.
Coertse made her Vienna State Opera debut on 17 March 1956 as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte. At 23, she became the youngest permanent ensemble member of the prestigious opera house, a position she held until 1978.
Her most performed role at the Vienna State Opera was Konstanze in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail, which she sang 102 times between 1956 and 1973. She also performed the Queen of the Night 62 times and sang 33 performances as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto.
Among her notable achievements was performing all four female roles in Offenbach’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann – Olympia, Antonia, Giulietta and Stella. In 1962, she sang all four roles in Afrikaans at the opening of the Johannesburg Opera House.
The Austrian government honoured Coertse in 1966 with the title Österreichischer Kammersänger (Austrian Chamber Singer) for her ten years of service at the Vienna State Opera. She performed alongside opera legends including Fritz Wunderlich and Luciano Pavarotti.
Coertse returned to South Africa in 1973 after her farewell performance in Entführung on 27 January. She continued to perform regularly on South African stages and worked as a radio and television broadcaster.
In her later years, she dedicated herself to nurturing young talent, teaching lieder singing and creating a fund to enable South African students to study in Europe. She co-founded the Black Tie Ensemble, a multicultural group for young opera singers that performed at venues including the State Theatre in Pretoria and the Civic Theatre in Johannesburg.
Her legacy was recognised with numerous honours. In 2004, she was voted 45th in the 100 Great South Africans. The Mimi Coertse Museum opened at the Heritage Arts Project in Pretoria in 2008. In 2012, the Vienna State Opera mounted an exhibition titled “Mimi Coertse, a Viennese woman from South Africa”, and in 2020 she was inducted as a living legend at the South African Legends Museum.
Coertse was married three times. Her first marriage was to Dawid Engela in 1953 ended in divorce in 1957; her second marriage was to Italian businessman Diego Brighi in 1965, which ended in 1969; and her third marriage was to South African businessman Werner Ackerman in 1970, lasting until 1994.
