Bringing Beatrice Belkin Home: A Jewish Opera Singer's Early Years in Lawrence, KS

About this event

Coloratura soprano Beatrice Abrams Belkin Littau (1902-1998), known professionally as Beatrice Belkin, led a successful operatic career while maintaining connections with her Jewish community. In New York, she studied with former Jewish opera singer Estelle Liebling, and held singing posts at the Congregation Emanu-El of New York, and Temple Emanu-El in Bayonne, New Jersey. After performing for Jewish impresario Samuel Roxy Rothafel at Radio City Music Hall and the Rialto Theatre, Belkin sang concerts in Berlin and Amsterdam. In 1930, she signed a contract with the Metropolitan Opera Company, and debuted as the Dew Man in Engelbert Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel . It is less well known that Belkin spent her early years in Lawrence, Kansas.

Though born in New York City to George and Jennie (Schaff) Abrams, Belkin moved with her family to Lawrence, Kansas as a teenager in 1916. Here, Belkin received her earliest musical training and taught piano lessons. After graduating from Lawrence High School, Belkin studied at the University of Kansas (KU), where she earned a bachelor’s degree in economics and music in 1924. Even after she left the city, headlines in various press outlets capture her continued pride in her Kansas roots. In 1928-1929, she returned to KU to perform at a Music Festival. This presentation for the Lawrence Jewish Community Center will draw on press and archival findings to excavate Belkin’s early years in Lawrence, Kansas, and explore how it shaped her eventual musical career. By bringing Belkin’s story to audiences at the Lawrence Jewish Community Center (LJCC), I hope to highlight Belkin’s remarkable story for contemporary local Jewish audiences.

Refreshments will be provided.

About the presenter

Dr. Samantha Cooper is the Robert M. Beren Assistant Professor in Jewish Studies at the University of Kansas. Her first book, American Jews and the Making of the New York Opera Industry, 1880-1940 , is forthcoming with Oxford University Press. Her research has been published in the Journal of the Society for American Music , American Jewish History , and The Opera Quarterly . Samantha is the producer and host of The Sounding Jewish Podcast, and the co-executive director of the Jewish Music Forum, A Project of the American Society for Jewish Music.

In partnership with

Lawrence Jewish Community Center

University of Kansas Jewish Studies Program

Cover Image: By Staff artist of Radio Digest Illustrated - "KPO To Celebrate Third Birthday," Radio Digest Illustrated, January 16, 1926, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=150366516 .