Maria Klijmans is an opera singer with an international career in the past and dedicated to active public activity in the present day. Her voice is familiar to the listeners of the Bulgarian National Radio - for decades she has been reporting on various cultural events in Belgium where she lives. She has often reported from other European cities with brisk music agendas – Salzburg, Paris, Milan, Berlin and Leipzig. Maria has no training in broadcasting. Central to her efforts is her enthusiasm and love for serious music and the urge to share beautiful things with other people. “I was brought up with this mentality”, Maria Clijmans admits.
“In the 1930s when I was born, traditions were very powerful in Bulgaria", she adds. "My parents were intelligent and educated people, but my grandmother was quite keen on old-time rites. So I was actually born at home over straw, like Jesus Christ. My grandmother later told me that at my birth the home was visited by three weird sisters. Two of them were young and beautiful, and the third one, angry and old. I had a gift for music that was discovered by my teacher in nursery school. One of her sons taught me some French. He told me about Paris, and how lovely that city was. Years later I visited Paris and I was absolutely mesmerized. I went to theater and opera shows. For the first time back then I watched Maurice Bejart, I listened to music by Benjamin Britten and saw some shows by Bertolt Brecht. German companies presented Wagner’s operas. I was young and experienced a veritable greed for culture. One night my uncle took me to a Bulgarian-French meeting. The Bulgarian atmosphere of that small community was unforgettable. Later in life I moved to Belgium and I vowed to myself to create such another small Bulgaria there.”
Before moving to Antwerp, Maria Klijmans devoted many years to the art of opera. At first she was an intern at Grande Opera in Paris where she worked with leading conductors and vocal pedagogues. In the summer of 1962 she won the second prize at the Golden Voices contest in Toulouse, France. The singer then went on making recordings for Radio France Internationale. Supported by famous musicians, Maria Clijmans joined the company of Volksoper in Vienna and was soon given parts in Don Giovanni by Mozart, in Mermaid by Dvorak etc. Her first appearance on stage in Belgium was in 1971. In Lucrezia Borgia by Gaetano Donizetti, she sang with renowned Bulgarian tenor Nikola Nikolov. The singers got very good reviews and soon, Maria Christova (her maiden name) was invited to appear as Gilda in Verdi’s Rigoletto in the Royal Opera House in Antwerp. In fact Maria was invited to replace another singer, the former wife of Willy Klijmans whom Maria later married. Willy Klijmans actually comes from a famous family in Antwerp. In 1976, already as Mrs Klijmans, Maria revisited her memories of the Paris-based small Bulgaria and decided to organize the first Bulgarian expat meeting in Antwerp.
“I had the addresses of 3 or 4 Bulgarians. I wrote them letters and suggested that we meet. Twenty-nine people turned out. It was such a great experience. A year later we already had 600 people on our mailing list. In January 1980 I got mail from the Bulgarian bishop for Western Europe. He was asking whether we could found a Bulgarian Orthodox Church in Belgium. On that same day the family notary registered the St. Kliment Ohridski Bulgarian church society. I won for the cause Georgi Polimirev, a well-to-do Bulgarian, an engineer who had built the Kennedytunnel under the River Scheldt. Later the three daughters of Strashimir Stefanov helped a lot with the society. Their father had brought the Bulgarian yoghurt to Belgium for the first time. I have started writing a book about those remarkable people. Some of them settled in Belgium in the early 20 c., and others – in the 1920s and 1940s. We even had a Bulgarian school here and I keep its statutes. Unfortunately, I am always short of time finishing the book. All the time people are calling asking for help. I have other things to do but this is very important for me.”
Maria Klijmans is member of one of Belgium’s most prestigious ladies’ club. For years she has been working for the Queen Elizabeth Contest. She helps Bulgarians in dire straits and works to make her ideas become reality. She never misses big cultural events and often sends reports to the Bulgarian National Radio. “Experiencing beauty is never full unless you share it with a human being”, argues Maria Klijmans.
Translated by Daniela Konstantinova
