The following is extracted from Volume III of the 1986 edition of South African Music Encyclopedia (J.P. Malan, ISBN 0 19 570363 4)
KATE OPPERMAN, contralto, born 1886 in Ladybrand, died ?
Kate Opperman was brought to Johannesburg at the age of three when her father trekked from the Free State in search of gold. He found none and established a dairy farm on the land at present occupied by the University of the Witwatersrand. Her voice was discovered when she was twelve and at twenty she won an open competition run by Tressi's South African College of Music, the first of many prizes before earning a free scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music in 1911. She left for London almost immediately and sang at the Albert Hall, the Queen's Hall and at Sunday League Concerts at the London Palladium during 1912 and 1913. In the course of 1914 she returned to South Africa with a theatre group. While in London, her voice was recorded by Zonophone singing Afrikaans and Dutch songs by James Hyde, ML de Villiers, Henri ten Brink, and the Dutchman Brandts-Buys.
Shortly after her return she married a Mr Urquhart and a son was born in Germiston in 1915. The next year she started teaching voice production and attracted students from various parts of the Transvaal. In 1923 she decided to return to Britain as a teacher of singing and remained there permanently. Among her pupils was the wife of Prince Arthur of Connaught. Apart from her teaching practice she played character parts in more than 50 films. Her voice was used in Goodnight Vienna, the film which brought fame to Anna Neagle. In 1956 she was a patient in a London hospital recovering from a breakdown.
