Culp was born in
Groningen, the
Netherlands into a Jewish family of musicians and comedians. She was the daughter of
contrabass player Baruch Culp and his wife Sara Cohen. At the age of seven she began to practice the
violin, and at 11 had her first public violin performance. Her first performance as a singer was on 30 December 1893. In the summer of 1896, she left Groningen for
Amsterdam, where she studied at the Conservatory under renowned former opera singer
Cornélie van Zanten. Soon after completing her studies in 1900, Culp's singing career took flight. She was discovered by German-American conductor Wilhelm Berger, who took her to
Berlin to perform at the concert hall Saal Bechstein in 1901. Before long, she was performing all over Europe and America, sharing the stage with such notable composers, conductors and singers as
Edvard Grieg,
Richard Strauss,
Camille Saint-Saëns,
Enrico Caruso,
Otto Klemperer,
Willem Mengelberg,
Pablo Casals,
Percy Grainger,
Enrique Granados and
Thomas Beecham. As early as 1902 she performed for Queen
Wilhelmina of the Netherlands and in 1903 she was invited to sing at the German Imperial Court for Empress
Augusta Victoria. In 1911 Culp sang the mezzo-soprano part in the premiere performance of
Frederick Delius's
Songs of Sunset in London under
Thomas Beecham. In 1913, she made her American debut at
Carnegie Hall in
New York City. In the United States, she soon became known as the "Dutch Nightingale". Julia Culp made some 90 acoustic recordings between 1906 and 1926. In the United States, she made 41 recordings for the
Victor label in the years 1914–17 and in 1924. In July 1926 she made her only electric recordings, in Berlin. She married Erich Merten on 29 June 1905 and settled in Zehlendorff near
Berlin. However, the marriage was unsuccessful and they divorced in 1918. In the meantime, she had met a Czech industrialist, Wilhelm Ginzkey (1856 - 1934), and they married on 23 July 1919. At that time, she converted from
Judaism to
Catholicism, ended her singing career and moved to
Vienna. Julia remained married to Ginzkey until his death in 1934. In the meantime, the
Nazis had come to power in
Germany. After the German annexation (
Anschluss) of
Austria in 1938, Culp fled to the
Netherlands, moving in with her sister Betsy in
Amsterdam. When the Nazis invaded and occupied The Netherlands in 1940, Culp once again found herself in grave danger. Both she and her sister went into hiding and managed to survive the war. They returned to their flat on the Daniël Willinkplein (Victorieplein) in Amsterdam, where she remained until her death at age 90. ==References==