Mimi Coertse Collection

The Mimi Coertse Collection is a collection of sheet music by Mimi Coertse, a South African singer whose music caught the imagination of and made the strongest impact on both South African and overseas critics and public alike. Housed at the University of South Africa (UNISA), the collection features sheet music she has sung in theatres at The Hague, Naples, Dusseldorf, Brussels, Graz, Turin, Covent Garden, Salzburg, Linz, Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence, Barcelona, Athens, Melk, Stuttgart and Palermo and with conductors like Karl Böhm, Vittorio Gui, Heinrich Hollreiser, Herbert von Karajan, Josef' Keilberth, Rudolf Kempe, Josef Krips, Rafael Kubelik, Erich Leinsdorf, Lorin Maazel, Rudolf Moralt, John Pritchard, Argeo Quadri, Mario Rossi, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Herman Scherchen, (sir) Georg Solti, Hans Swarowsky, Antonino Votto, Edouard van Remoortel, Wilhelm Loibner, Georg Szell and Dimitri Mitropoulos.

Among the famous singers who have partnered her were Erich Kunz, Hilde Gueden, Helge Roswaenge, Boris Christoff, Waldemar Kmentt, Guiseppe Zampieri, Johannes Heesters, Otto Edelmann, Rudolf Schock, Sena Jurinac, Rudolf Christ, Christa Ludwig, Teresa Stich-Randall, Walter Berry, Julius Patzak, Otto Wiener and Anton Dermota.

Mimi left South Africa in September 1953 for London, and then via The Hague to Vienna. She arrived in Vienna in January 1954 and started training with Maria Hittorff and Josef Witt. Less than three years later, she got a permanent engagement at the Vienna State Opera. In January 1955, she made her first appearance on the professional opera stage as the First Flower girl in Wagner's "Parsifal" at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Karl Böhm conducting.

On 17 March 1956, she made her debut at the Vienna State Opera as Queen of the Night in "The Magic Flute" (Mozart).