Elsa Jülich trained at the conservatory in Cologne and made her debut at the Krefeld Stadttheater in 1906. After engagements at the Cologne and Dortmund operas, she returned to Krefeld in 1910. Jülich performed at the Bayreuth Festival in 1911 and 1912, followed by a guest engagement at the Covent Garden Opera in London in 1913. Over the following years, the soprano was engaged at theaters in Freiburg and Bremen and sang at the front-line theater in occupied Lille during the First World War. Jülich went to the Frankfurt Opera in 1921 and was an ensemble member of the Städtische Oper in Berlin from 1924 until 1929. She performed in Bayreuth for the last time in 1930. The singer primarily worked as a voice teacher in Berlin while also continuing to perform as a guest in the years that followed. In 1927, Jülich married Michael Taube, music director and répétiteur at the Städtische Oper. Taube had been Bruno Walter’s assistant and had become a successful orchestra leader in the course of the following years.
The Nazis’ rise to power in 1933 spelled the end of the two Jewish artists’ careers. Without the opportunity to work on German stages, Jülich and Taube were left with no other options but to become active in the Jewish Cultural Federation. Michael Taube was a co-founder of the federation’s Berlin division, and Elsa Jülich performed there as an opera singer. After a concert tour in Palestine, the two decided to flee. They dissolved their household, sold instruments, sheet music, and books for whatever money they could get, and left Berlin in September of 1935. The residential deregistration notice merely noted the following: “Taube, born Jülich, moved from Berlin, Kaiserallee no. 46, to Palestine, Tel Aviv, [...] on September 23, 1935.”
The couple settled in the city of Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv. While Michael Taube managed to build a second career as a conductor, orchestra leader, and director at a conservatory he founded, Elsa Jülich only made occasional concert appearances and otherwise worked as a voice teacher. After the war, she returned to Germany for a concert tour for refugees, performing at the former Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1948. She returned to Germany, where her children lived, once again in 1956 or 1957 and settled in West Berlin. Elsa Jülich later returned to Ramat Gan, where she died on June 23, 1964. Michael Taube died on February 23, 1972, in Tel Aviv.
1886 Cologne
1964 Ramat Gan