Returning to an Old Theme, Amira at Stevenskerk

There is a coincidence that I can't seem to shake; I can't help feel it has some meaning. Others may think I'm nuts. I usually don't emphasize signs. But this one for me is simply too glaring to ignore. Of course the parts of this coincidence are mostly only interesting to me, and thus I doubt anyone else would have noticed, or would even recognize them when pointed out.

In June 2019 I discovered the haunting talent and beauty of Amira Willighagen, the young Dutch opera singer. I had in fact seen her original audition on YouTube at a friend's house six years earlier when it first appeared, but I kind of just saw it as another amazing YouTube video, of which there are so many. The full impact of who Amira was only hit me in 2019.

For about a month, I spent many hours of each day combing YouTube for every concert there was of her, every documentary or interview, and downloading and saving every Twitter or Instagram picture. I bought her albums, enthusiastically donated to her beautiful charity nonprofit Gelukskinders, I even put on a show of her performances on a large screen at the local Circle Center, to a room of polite ladies I had to beg to come. Just about when I thought I had lost my mind, I discovered and joined Amira's actual private fan club on Sept. 3, 2019, where I learned there were thousands of people like me, many my age in fact. Each expressed a similar story. It reminded me of 12 step meetings I attended in the 80s. 'Welcome John, you're in the right place. Keep coming back.' Grown men who had once listened to rock 'n' roll and hated opera, had found Amira one day on YouTube by accident and found themselves locking their doors and crying for a week. I was definitely in the right place.

Being part of the club, it was like being in Europe. I literally got to know the main figures and their names, mature fans who had taken on major leadership roles in her organization. I even got some friendly responses to my comments by Amira's lovely mother, Frieda, who for the group is kind of a demigod. A comment by her appearing on Amira's fan page is a little like the clouds parting and a friendly trusted voice descending from heaven to tell us if our facts are right.

In time I found I had accumulated 15 hours of downloaded concerts and interviews of Amira and 1,500 photos. Both figures are way beyond that now. Fans refer to such habits as signs of 'the Amira effect.' And no one, not even Amira, can explain it. The only interesting thing I ever heard her say about the effect she has on people when she sings was that her singing apparently "reminded them of something beautiful." Anyone who has studied Plato's theory of the forms, or his Allegory of the Chariot, will recognize the haunting inner allusions in her words.

So, it must be obvious by now that I am a genuine 'Amira nut,' in the tradition of Beatlemaniacs and Jesus Freaks. I am a total fan!

So what I'm about to say will now make a little more sense. It is only a coincidence in genuine material terms, but deeply haunting to me, no less because I can't interpret it. But I know it means or portends something.

As I said above, I discovered Amira for the second time -- when it dawned on me in a giant flash how great she was -- in June 2019. When I first began to learn of her life and study her short career, I had assumed she was still very active. But as time went by I saw that her career had rather recently slowed just before I arrived. There are very complicated reasons for this that have to do with the music industry, struggles her record label was having in South Africa, and so forth. But to make the matter short, it was virtually impossible to find anything from that year, 2019. It had all come earlier. Her very last major stage performance was in Pretoria, South Africa on July 20, 2019, and at the time I could only see poor quality cellphone recordings of it, for a good recording would not be released for several more months. And these cellphone recordings were so poor one had to wonder if she had lost her talent. One couldn't tell.

During this quiet period, rumors began to grow online. People who were not fans began trolling her videos theorizing that her absence was due to her losing her voice entirely, that the years of world tours at such a young age had 'ruined' her voice. Another persistent rumor was that her voice had changed in puberty to the point where she could no longer hit the high notes she once had, that she was no longer a sprinto soprano, but was now a soprano assoluta or mezzo soprano at best. The hopes she would be the next Maria Callas, to whom she had from the beginning been compared, were starting to feel premature.

It is the fervent dream of every fan that one day the world will see how great their idol really is. I remember when the celebrity Gordon Heuckeroth, who was the first to recognize her talent, and essentially discovered her at 9, said when he handed Amira her first CD at the Sony Records inaugural party, “I will keep following you and keep hoping that you will become as big as your voice already is.” That very nicely describes how a fan feels about their idol. So it is understandable that as the months passed, my concern grew. Was Amira, at 15 years old, already a phenomenon destined to fade into history, a prodigy that didn't make the terribly hard transition to adult artist? This began a period in late 2019 where I was scouring the internet almost daily for any word on Amira, any chance to hear her voice or even see what she now looked like. I should have added, to make this concern even more clear, that in January 2018 Amira and her mother and brother had moved to South Africa. She had not been seen, then, in Europe for two whole years. So the rumors were thick. Amira was quite possibly finished.

How sad. I had dreamed of seeing her live one day, and such a thing might never be possible again. I only had my videos and albums and photos. And people would tell me that hearing a soprano in person was a whole other experience. Now during this time, from time to time, a new video of her would appear online, from tiny venues in South Africa, shot on cell phones. These were absolutely awful and had terrible sound. Often she indeed sounded like a has-been. Had she been lowered to appearing with children's choirs in High School gymnasiums? Is this where the whole story ended? Was it all really over, and I had just managed to arrive on the scene to see the party decor after it had ended? Oh God! For a fan it was a nightmare. And I had never even been a fan before. It was just like my luck.

So one might feel my surprise when one day I read that Amira would come and play in Europe for one day at a Christmas concert in her hometown. This would be her first performance in Europe in two long years, and she would perform in the Great Saint Stevens Church in Nijmegen (Stevenskerk) where she had often performed when she was young. I also heard that cameras and recording devices of any kind would be forbidden. The day of the scheduled performance (Dec. 15, 2019) came and went. I did get to see a tiny news clip of the event in Dutch, but could not make out much from it. So you can imagine my amazement when, a couple days later, while looking around online, I found a video of the inside of the Church where Amira -- just days earlier - performed. It was a drone shot of the inside of the beautiful cathedral. And the music over the video was titled A Sign of Hope. Imagine that!

Beneath the drone video, a caption read:

The Grote of Sint-Stevenskerk is getting ready for Christmas 2019. On Advent's third Sunday John Beckmann went to take a look. With his drone.

A photographer had shot the interior of the atrium where Amira would play, earlier on the very day of her performance. 

Here now is the video. It helps, I think, to expand the video and turn up the music or put on headphones to get the full emotional effect. The sense of bated breath anticipation is so great in this video it's insane! Add to this the fact that this was filmed (and Amira's concert performed) on the third Sunday of Advent. I will talk about the meaning of this Catholic religious day in a moment. Notice the feeling of anticipation. This is the atrium in which Amira would sing later that day. 

Unlike many classical-crossover singers that sing religious arias and prayers like Amira has always been known for, Amira is in fact a deeply sincere Catholic, something she does not hide. Her entire musical education was gained in her local church as she grew up. Her father, a church organist, would bring her to church with him when she was a baby and set her baby basket beside the organ as he played. One can begin to see why she wrote to her father on her last album, 'without you I would be nowhere.'

So as I said above, this filming of the interior of the Stevens church, and Amira's never-revealed concert there in December 2019, fell on the third Sunday of Advent. Advent is a season of the liturgical year observed in Christian churches as a time of expectant waiting and preparation for both the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus at Christmas and the return of Jesus at the Second Coming. The symbolism of the third day of Advent is a pink candle, representing the joy of Mary. Historically, the pink or rose candle in the ritual is called the Gaudete candle, from the Latin word meaning “rejoice.” Hence the third Sunday of Advent is also known by some Christians as Gaudete Sunday. The readings on Gaudete Sunday include promises of healing, freedom, and comfort.

Below is a photo from the unrecorded 'silent' concert Amira gave on the third Sunday of Advent in Stevenskerk – taken by the local media.

The Silent (Unrecorded) Concert

What do we know of this church? Stevenskerk is the oldest and largest church in Nijmegen, the city of Amira's birth in Holland. According to Wikipedia, the history of the church dates back to the seventh century. The city of Nijmegen, in turn, is the oldest city in the Netherlands, and dates back 2000 years. 

So what does all this mean, or at least what might it mean to me?

I don't quite know, but there is something to the majesty of the long-anticipated night concert of December 15, and even of the fact that no video cameras were allowed to record it. And here is something amazing I also found, that makes me think I am right that there is something going on in heaven and earth beyond our mere philosophies. 

In November of 2019, just prior to Amira's appearance at Stevskerk for her Christmas concert, a person named Jacob Israel (consider that name) commented on a video of Amira's that had been shot from the audience with a cell phone, the following enigmatic comment. The video is of Amira singing How Great Thou Art in Afrikaans, in a small venue in Potchefstroom, South Africa. The comment reads:

AMIRA YOUR DRESS IS SAYING A LOT ABOUT YOU, AS I HAVE SAID BEFORE AND WILL SAY AGAIN AMIRA MISSION IS TO SING IN TROUBLED TIMES TO COME, GOD BE WITH YOU AMIRA.

One month after this cryptic comment was made, and after these church halls fell silent of Amira's beautiful voice, on Dec 31, 2019 (15 days after she performed there), Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China, reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. The rest is history. 

To see how enigmatic this lone comment actually was, this is Amira in the dress it refers to. It is hard to see 'what it says' about Amira, except it is typically refined. 

Amira sings Hoe Groot Is U live at NG Kerk Wilkruin
Christmas Concert in South Africa, Nov. 17, 2019

The original video can be viewed here, along with the comment and my brief reply. Sure enough, as the Virus scare took over, and lockdowns began to be enforced around the world, person after person began to comment that Amira's voice they could hear from home was one of the few things holding them together, and giving them a sense of peace and spiritual promise.

Are you starting to see that there is something going on? I just explained the meaning of the third day of Advent. Or has an innocent fan simply lost his once lucid mind, smitten with too big a dose of adoration for a teenage ingénue? 

I'll let the reader decide. I think my feelings are apparent enough.

Now what of the rumors that Amira might have lost her beautiful voice? This question would not be fully answered for another few months, which I'll get to in a moment. Amira's Christmas visit to Amsterdam was in December. This was in fact summer in South Africa. Flying from South Africa to The Netherlands at Christmas meant a temperature drop of about 40°F. Amira actually asked her old singing coach to suggest remedies for her voice to deal with the extreme cold. On top of this, fans learned from Amira's mother Frieda, Amira was facing down a severe cold, to the point where she had to be on silence for several days leading up to the December 15 concert. But how did it go? How did she do? We do not know. We only have the program sheets. 

As the days rolled by afterward, I began to learn more of the proceedings that had in fact taken place in the days leading up to Christmas that I had not been aware of. And all became clear on Christmas morning, when I woke and turned on my computer. To my utter surprise, the concert at Stevenskerk had only been one of several concerts Amira performed in on her quick European tour. In Belgium, on December 1, she performed for fans at a five year celebration of her charitable foundation, Gelukskinders. I have not seen these performances yet. They just became available on a four DVD set available from her foundation. On December 9, she sang one song she had not sung before, Ave Maria by Schubert, at De Sint-Jacobskerk in The Hague. And the day after the Stevenskerk concert she performed at Sint-Barbarakerk in Dreumel. As if that was not enough, she performed a free streamed Christmas concert for nursing homes throughout The Netherlands with another young Dutch singer, Marjolien. It was an incredible 16 days, which she did with a cold. Here is one of those performances, the one in the Hague singing Schubert. Judge for yourself if Amira has lost her beautiful voice.

 

On her return to South Africa, Amira returned to her school studies. And then, three months later, as if the message from Jacob Israel had been prophetic, we saw this message from her – that is eerie in hindsight. 

The lockdowns in South Africa were some of the most severe in the world. Social unrest has also come. It is said more people have died from police bullets than any virus or flu.

Amira was characteristically true to her word. Not only did she send out periodic messages saying how she was doing, she sang songs, performed dances, celebrated the birthdays of her Gelukskinder volunteers (who are fans), and generally did all she could to brighten people's days. As for new songs, she recently made good on that promise too. Getting permission to temporarily break quarantine, she shot and edited this video of herself in tribute to the late Ennio Morricone, whose songs have made her famous. Whether or not you like this first try at making a video, you have to admit that there is nothing wrong with Amira's voice.

Recorded on July 7, 2020 in South Africa

For me, the symbolism all comes together when you consider the name of the song on the drone video I started off this post talking about. A Sign of Hope. The ancient halls of Stevenskerk in a city as old as Christ, were awaiting that sign, and this glorious anticipation is captured in that drone video. And the sign that was given was the unseen concert by Amira, an unrecorded concert of one of the greatest sopranos and wonderful people of our time, and a genuine loving Christian. And as Jacob Israel put it, Amira's mission now is to sing to us and cheer us up, and give us hope, in these troubled times we are going through.

And here are the videos Amira has done to cheer up her fans during troubled times.



A small crowd gathers in the cold outside Sint-Barbarakerk in Dreumel, NL last December to see what would turn out to be Amira's very last public performance – for the time being.

UPDATE FEB. 1, 2021

I was not the only Amira fan that worried about Amira's voice. While there are many theories about what caused her difficulties in 2019, all concerns were relieved when she released two streaming concerts at the end of 2020, one titled "This is My Dream" and the other, "African Christmas." The following song is from the latter.