The First Class of Fulbrighters - Fulbright-Kommission

Thanks for the Memories
by Mathilda Nickel
Born in Ohio, Matilda Nickel began her singing career
in Europe with a Fulbright Fellowship for study in
Hamburg. She sang extensively across Europe, making her
London debut at Wigmore Hall. Since returning to the
United States she has sung leading roles with opera companies
from coast to coast. Nickel’s affinity for American
composers has led her to sing in many new works, including
the role of Sabrina in the world premiere of Pulitzer
Prize-winner Dominick Argento’s Colonel Jonathan the
Saint. Nickel has also performed such demanding roles as
Madam Butterfly, Salome, Leonore in Beethoven’s Fidelo
and Senta in Wagner’s The Flying Dutchman. She now
lives in Winston-Salem at teaches at the North Carolina
School of the Arts.
IT ALL BEGAN with my very first trip to New
York from Ohio in order to board the S.S. Independence. I was
young and scared to death. When I located my assigned
stateroom, which had four double decker bunk beds, the
first person in sight was the famous conductor, Robert
Shaw, sitting on a lower bunk. He was there to wish bon
voyage to a fellow Fulbrighter who had been a member of
his chorale. That was enough to get my blood rushing.
The voyage was thrilling. Other Fulbrighters, who were
musicians, and I entertained our fellow travelers and we
passed Gibraltar into the Mediterranean, finally landing in
Italy. The next trip was by rail up to Bad Honnef and our
orientation sessions on the banks of the Rhine. Then on to
Hamburg where I was to study voice and opera.
Then came the reality of what war can do. I found a
place to live in a high-rise apartment building, which had
been built to house war survivors. My landlady, the wife of
a well-to-do oil company CEO, had lost her husband and
her home in the bombing, but she took me, an American
student, in and treated me like a daughter. She fed me and
saw to it that my stocking seams (no blue jeans and sneakers
in those days) were straight and that my dates passed
with her approval.
It was not only my studies at the Hochschule für Musik
that were important to me. It was the opportunity to go to
the superb Hamburg Opera nearly every night. It was elegant
even though they, at the time, played on what formerly
had been the stage of their bombed out theater—audience
and all. They did not give up!
I didn’t learn from my opera studies alone. I learned
how to live from these people, who had been through so
much.
I remember Christmas Eve of 1953, when a friend and
I, another Fulbrighter, went skiing in Hoch Solden, Austria.
She skied. What I did can’t be called skiing, but I had
a great time! We went to midnight mass in a lovely old
church. It was so beautiful to come out into the moonlit
snow that covered the Alps.
It was friends that I have lost track of, news of whom I
read about in places like the New York Times—good news as
well as the obituary of another Fulbright friend—that made
the experience worthwhile.
I learned that I can get homesick, but Thanksgiving
dinner at the Consul General’s house fixed that—turkey,
sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie, and, would you believe, fresh
celery!
I learned by work and play. I was with mixed emotions
that I got back on the S.S. Independence to go home. I would
love to go back some day.
Thank you, Senator Fulbright.