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At Gré Brouwenstijn's farewell |
 There
is a time to come and a time to go - Gré Brouwenstijn often said
this when she was asked by interviewers or by her loyal admirers why she
wished to end her opera career in February 1971, after the first notices
about her imminent farewell to the stage had appeared in the press as
early as November 1969. A farewell also to a glorious career that took
the singer in over 25 years to all great opera theatres in three
continents, where she scored triumph after triumph.It undoubtedly takes courage to end a career one self and of one's own free will at a moment when the voice is still able to shine in all its splendour and the interpretative powers enable an artist again and again to bring up new aspects in her interpretations. Gré Brouwenstijn summons up this mental courage because she wishes to live on in memory as she was at the height of her career and not as she might have become when she would have continued her career, advancing in years and inevitably diminishing in vocal powers. |
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Klaas A. Posthuma († 2001), January 1971. (translation Peter Bree) |
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Gré Brouwenstijn and Bernard Haitink after a concert to her honour |
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(p) 2001 Dutch Divas |
Now
that in February 1971 the curtain definitely falls on the great career
of Gré Brouwenstijn we are left with the recordings, the old
programmes and memories of her radiant personality, her intimate
singing and her sincere interpretations with which she managed to move
us so incalculably many times. And, as she herself said so many times
as Leonore in Fidelio about the voice of the imprisoned Florestan: