Opera singer Kim Cheong-ja, first Korean to debut on a European stage, dies at 81; also devoted her life to service in Malawi

[Financial News] Mezzo-soprano Kim Cheong-ja, the first Korean to appear on a European opera stage, a former professor at the Korea National University of Arts, died on the 5th. She was 81.
On the 6th, the Korea National University of Arts said that former professor Kim had died at St. Luke’s Hospital in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, after battling cancer. While continuing her volunteer work in Malawi, Africa, she had been fighting the disease since being diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer in October 2022.
Born in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province, in 1944, she went to Germany in 1963 to work as a nursing assistant with the help of a foreign priest, after graduating from high school. Though she worked in an unfamiliar land, she never gave up her dream of music. Her talent was recognized locally, and just five months after arriving in Germany, she began studying piano and vocal music at the Leopold Mozart Conservatory in Augsburg. She later graduated from the Vienna Academy of Music in Austria.
After making her debut on a European opera stage in 1970 as the first Korean to do so, she signed an exclusive contract with the Bern Opera in Switzerland. She performed for 16 years on European stages, including with the Karlsruhe State Opera in Germany and in Switzerland, Italy and Spain, and appeared in numerous works as a prima donna with the Düsseldorf Opera in Germany.
From 1973 to 1978, she was a professor in the vocal music departments of Chung-Ang University and Yonsei University. From 1994 to 2010, she taught at the Korea National University of Arts, training the next generation of singers.

The life she spent on glamorous stages reached a new turning point in Africa.
According to her 2014 book, Kim Cheong-ja’s Love for Africa, she traveled to South Africa and Zambia, among other places, in 2005, when she turned 60, and witnessed the reality of children suffering from hunger and disease. She later recalled, “When children reduced to skin and bones clung to me like cicadas and wouldn’t let go in Zambia, I realized, ‘This is the homeland of my soul.’”
After retiring at the mandatory retirement age in February 2010, she immediately established the Kim Cheong-ja Africa Love Support Association and left for Malawi that September. There, she founded a music school for orphans and opened a path for local young people to study in Korea, while pursuing education and volunteer work.
A local chief gave her the Malawian name “Lusekero,” meaning “a woman who brings happiness.”
She is survived by her son, Daniel Glatzel, who founded the Andromeda Chamber Orchestra in Germany and remains active with it.
A wake will be held at the funeral home of The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, beginning at 11 a.m. on the 6th. The funeral Mass will be held on the 8th at Gaepo-dong Catholic Church in Seoul.
[email protected] Shin Jin-a Reporter