August van den Hoeck

Biography

August van den Hoeck was an opera singer born in Brussels who enjoyed various successes with the Nederlandsch Opera-Gezelschap. Starting in the mid-1910s, he also began acting in films. The best known of these is Johan Gildemeijer’s Gloria transita, in which Van den Hoeck plays an impoverished opera singer.

In the film, the elaborate vocal sections were recorded by Van den Hoeck and his fellow actors (including his wife, the opera singer Wilhelmina van den Hoeck), and were sung live during the film screenings. For more than a decade after the film’s premiere, Van den Hoeck travelled throughout the country with Gloria transita.