Australia's Operatic Phoenix: From World War II to War and Peace

Alison Gyger

Sydney, 2005: Pelinor, 360pp.

ISBN 0949697419

Reviewed by Rowena Cowley

The story of opera in Australia prior to the establishment of a national company might be described as one of operatic droughts and flooding rains. Alison Gyger has contributed significantly to telling this story: her two previous books covered Australian operatic history from 1796 until the beginning of World War II. Gyger’s third book on the subject covers the period from the last J.C. Williamson and Italian companies to the opening season of The Australian Opera in the Sydney Opera House: from post-war 1948 to 1973.

Performance records, press and personal reminiscences are her sources. Post-war opera critics themselves were an interesting bunch: they ranged from composers (for instance, Le Gallienne, Werder) to drama/film/crossword expert Lindsey Browne ‘whose musical background consisted of a year teaching himself the piano’ (although Gyger points out that he ‘made the most of overseas postings and trips to further his knowledge’). Melbourne critic John Sinclair was successfully sued by a visiting singer, and once described another singer as performing ‘like a Fitzroy tart’. Roger Covell was employed full-time at the Sydney Morning Herald for six years. Despite such luxuries, ‘it was still possible, particularly in Melbourne, to find details of society attendees and their costuming, but not reviews’.

Nevertheless there was a hunger for opera in the immediate post-war. J.C. Williamson’s planned a season of eighteen to twenty operas for 1948-49. The chief conductor for this season was Franco Ghione from La Scala, in charge of twenty-six Italian principals, with twelve Australian singers in mostly small roles. The company brought its costumes, wigs and twenty-two operatic sets to Australia. The sets were not always appreciated: one critic wondered why the company ‘bothered to lug a lot of extremely bad painting all the way from Milan’.

Performers were received with both rapture and bemusement. Lindsey Browne wrote that it was ‘such a pleasure to hear opera presented by artists whose temperaments have been steeped for years in its passionate dyes’. On the other hand, audiences were amused when the Don Jose in a performance of Carmen, after singing his aria, ‘buried his sad, self-pitying face’ in Carmen’s ‘indifferent lap’, only to leap up to take a bow for the applause which followed. They laughed heartily.

These seasons were followed by separate Australian-made ventures in both Melbourne and Sydney. Melbourne’s National Theatre, set up by Gertrude Johnson, produced seasons from 1948 to 1951. Its first season, at the Princess Theatre, comprised Aida, Rigoletto, Figaro, Faust and Carmen, under the directorship of Joseph Post. Only the orchestra was paid, but critic Sinclair described the season as ‘a solid beginning to an important venture. It can provide valuable experience for our young singers and its future is everyone’s concern’. Stefan Haag’s important contribution to opera in this country began here.

In Sydney, The New South Wales National Opera gave a short season in 1951 at the Tivoli Theatre. Chief generator of this company was Clarice Lorenz. Opera in Sydney was also fortunate in having Goossens at the Conservatorium. His performances provided opportunities for collaboration with Sydney Symphony Orchestra players and both experienced and not so experienced singers to perform in a list of operas which is certainly startling for this reviewer, used to the strictures of contemporary university funding: they included Falstaff, Pelléas, Mastersingers, Otello and Boris Godunov. Rockdale Opera, Australia’s longest-running company, was an important training ground for singers such as Geoffrey Chard and Neil Easton.

In 1952, Melbourne and Sydney companies presented a joint season of six operas including Lohengrin, Masked Ball, Lucia di Lammermoor and Don Giovanni. Baritone John Brownlee, with a distinguished international career, was a leading singer. Marie Collier, Elizabeth Fretwell and Robert Simmons were outstanding. But the cooperation between companies was short lived, and 1953-55 saw the return of separate seasons. During this time, singers such as Florence Taylor, Margreta Elkins, Ronald Dowd were heard, and Heather Begg appeared (at 21 yrs) during a tour of New Zealand.

The Italian touring company of 1955 was the last of an eighty-five year history. It featured Australian expatriates such as Kenneth Neate, young singers such as John Shaw and Donald Smith beside such luminaries as Gabriella Tucci. Opening nights were grand occasions: bejeweled patrons entering the theatre attracted crowds of observers and singers were heard warming-up before the performance. Do we miss that kind of immediacy in contemporary opera?

Glamour was present in spades during the Sutherland-Williamson season of 1965. Joan Sutherland appeared in five of the six operas directed by Richard Bonynge, and featuring a young Pavarotti and the distinguished American tenor John Alexander. Margreta Elkins, Robert Allman and Lauris Elms were some of the Australians heard in this company.

From 1955-1973, not only the Sydney Opera House was being built, but also the national opera company. Gyger details the evolution of the Elizabethan Trust Opera Company, and the Australian Opera Company, now Opera Australia. The story is one of movement towards full professionalism and the possibility of making a living as an opera singer in this country. It is the start of the more contemporary story of competition for political and financial support and the building of artistic and administrative structures. This part of the story includes names familiar to opera-goers of the last thirty years: a wonderful litany of Australian singers, and international conductors, directors and designers.

In 1972, the last year of performance in the Elizabethan Theatre in Sydney, this reviewer (green as grass and from the country) saw Yvonne Minton as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier and fell in love with opera. This book provides cast details of that and many other productions of the period, accompanied by over one hundred photos of singers and productions of the period. It teaches Australians that we have an operatic history which is both rich and easily lost. Brava, Alison Gyger, for keeping that history alive.

Music Forum Vol 13 No 1