Adriaan van Limpt

Van Limpt worked in car trade and then was a cafetier for many years. He discovered his voice late, had it trained at the Maastricht conservatory, and made his debut in Amsterdam in a small role in Capriccio in 1975 – at 40 years old! In 1977, he won a singing competition organized by the Dutch TV, whereupon he got to sing main roles: Riccardo, which was his breakthrough, then Pinkerton. The same year, he was already at the Bregenz Festival (as Hüon), and in 1978 in Amsterdam, he sang Pollione to Joan Sutherland's Norma.

Other than in Amsterdam and Den Haag, he also sang a lot in the US (in San Diego, for instance), in Cardiff, London, Prague, Paris, Brussels, Mexico, Canada, Israel. His specialty was Italian opera: Edgardo, Manrico, Arrigo, Turiddu, Macduff, Gabriele Adorno; but he also sang Erik or Pierrot in Viktor Ullmann's Kaiser von Atlantis. Van Limpt finished his career in 1993/94 as the Phantom of the opera.

Reference 1: Kutsch & Riemens, reference 2, reference 3: Dutch Divas