Morag Beaton
Encyclopedia
Morag Beaton was a Scottish-Australian dramatic soprano
who established her reputation as Turandot
, a role she sang in Australia more than any other soprano to date. She also sang Tatiana (Eugene Onegin
), Venus (Tannhäuser
), Abigaille (Nabucco
), Eboli (Don Carlos
) Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana
) and many other roles. Her operatic career in Australia was relatively brief, lasting only from 1965 until 1983, with a final recital at the Sydney Opera House
in 1983.
(recorded in live performance and now on compact disc), and her performance as Cathy on the complete recording of Bernard Herrmann
's only full length opera Wuthering Heights
. Beaton's operatic career is also notable because she is the only singer in history successfully to have alternated the exacting soprano role of Turandot with the contralto role of Maddalena (Rigoletto
) in one season, and, in later seasons, sung the contralto role of Ulrica (A Masked Ball
) followed by more Turandots and another difficult soprano role – Abigaille in Nabucco
.
After Beaton's final recital at the Sydney Opera House
in 1983, she occasionally sang for special events such as the 80th birthday gala for Sylvia Fisher
, and mentored many aspiring singers. The warm reception for Beaton at the Sydney Opera House in 1996, when she attended the gala to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Australian Opera Company, was as much an acknowledgement of her past performances as it was a reminder of how much audiences had missed her on stage in the intervening years. In 2006, at a gala for one hundred guests in honour of Beaton's own 80th birthday, she sang two Scottish songs, accompanied by Geoffrey Tozer
. "Still rich and glorious" declared the guest of honour, the renowned Australian opera star Lauris Elms
, when she heard Beaton's singing on that occasion.
, Scotland, on 2 July 1926. As a girl, Beaton studied music with her mother, Margaret. Feeling the need to contribute to the war effort, Beaton enlisted in the army in 1945 and devoted the next three years of her life to military service, singing as much as she could. Whenever the opportunity arose, Beaton would sing for the troops while fulfilling a variety of duties on different postings.
sessions of Dr Hans Gál
which were a "unique feature of Edinburgh's musical life". Gál became an important influence in Beaton's development. He was a brilliant musician, a composer, pianist and scholar of great distinction. In March 1938, like other Jewish refugee families anxious to escape Hitler and the Nazis, Gál fled to England with his wife Hanna and their two sons. Later Gál was offered a position as Lecturer in Music at the University of Edinburgh
.
In 1948, just as Beaton's prospects were moving in a positive direction, her life changed. Quite suddenly, in April, her mother died at the age of fifty. From then, until 1962, with the help of her aunt Barbara McGillivray, Beaton served a very long apprenticeship in singing in London. During the late 1950s she won a series of scholarships and prizes that enabled her, at last, to study singing full-time.
's Atlantida. After singing in Germany and England, having been invited by Richard Bonynge
, she toured Australia with the Sutherland-Williamson International Grand Opera Company in 1965. In 1966, she recorded the role of Cathy in the complete recording of Bernard Herrmann
's Wuthering Heights
, under the composer's direction. The same year, she made another recording, this time for Decca
, with Joan Sutherland
and another singer she also admired, the mezzo-soprano Margreta Elkins
. Beaton sang with the Australian Opera from 1967 until early 1973, when she resigned and returned to London where she underwent surgery for a medical condition that had been troubling her for some time. She returned to Australia in 1976.
On 16 January 1983, at the Sydney Opera House, Beaton returned to public performance with a recital of operatic arias including "Voi lo sapete" (Cavalleria rusticana
) "Son pochi fiori" (L'amico Fritz
), "O mio babbino caro
" (Gianni Schicchi
), "Io son l'umile" (Adriana Lecouvreur
), "L'altre notte" (Mefistofele
) and "Suicidio" (La Gioconda
). With Elizabeth Allen she sang the duets "Songs My Mother Taught Me" (Dvořák
) and the "Barcarolle" from Offenbach
's The Tales of Hoffmann. In three beautiful unaccompanied Hebridean songs with which she closed the recital, Beaton sang a homage to her late Aunt Barbara and in remembrance of her mother, Margaret.
Dr Peter Wyllie Johnston, the Australian writer and composer, said that although Beaton lacked the support systems that are typically required for an operatic soprano, she made up for this by her strong character and resilience, and the focus of opera as her whole life.
to open the season at Her Majesty's Theatre
in Melbourne. For five years between 1967 and 1971 Beaton sang Turandot many times in the Australian Opera's production, in most capital cities around the country. Listening to the live recording of one of those performances from Sydney, it is easy to understand why critics such as Felix Werder
, James Glennon, Val Vallis, John Cargher
and Kenneth Hince among many others were enormously impressed as Beaton's big, dramatic voice created vocal fireworks for the audience. She was vocally spectacular and visually resplendent in the heavily jewelled, padded costume and headdress designed for the production, with the enormous peacock train which was twenty-eight feet in length.
Dramatic soprano
A dramatic soprano is an operatic soprano with a powerful, rich, emotive voice that can sing over, or cut through, a full orchestra. Thicker vocal folds in dramatic voices usually mean less agility than lighter voices but a sustained, fuller sound. Usually this voice has a lower tessitura than...
who established her reputation as Turandot
Turandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
, a role she sang in Australia more than any other soprano to date. She also sang Tatiana (Eugene Onegin
Eugene Onegin (opera)
Eugene Onegin, Op. 24, is an opera in 3 acts , by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto was written by Konstantin Shilovsky and the composer and his brother Modest, and is based on the novel in verse by Alexander Pushkin....
), Venus (Tannhäuser
Tannhäuser (opera)
Tannhäuser is an opera in three acts, music and text by Richard Wagner, based on the two German legends of Tannhäuser and the song contest at Wartburg...
), Abigaille (Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
), Eboli (Don Carlos
Don Carlos
Don Carlos is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French language libretto by Camille du Locle and Joseph Méry, based on the dramatic play Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien by Friedrich Schiller...
) Santuzza (Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
) and many other roles. Her operatic career in Australia was relatively brief, lasting only from 1965 until 1983, with a final recital at the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
in 1983.
Background
Today, Beaton's reputation rests largely on her appearances as TurandotTurandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
(recorded in live performance and now on compact disc), and her performance as Cathy on the complete recording of Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
's only full length opera Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights (Herrmann)
Wuthering Heights is the sole opera written by Bernard Herrmann. He worked on it from 1943 to 1951. It is cast in a prologue, 4 acts, and an epilogue that repeats the music of the prologue...
. Beaton's operatic career is also notable because she is the only singer in history successfully to have alternated the exacting soprano role of Turandot with the contralto role of Maddalena (Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
) in one season, and, in later seasons, sung the contralto role of Ulrica (A Masked Ball
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
) followed by more Turandots and another difficult soprano role – Abigaille in Nabucco
Nabucco
Nabucco is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Temistocle Solera, based on the Biblical story and the 1836 play by Auguste Anicet-Bourgeois and Francis Cornue...
.
After Beaton's final recital at the Sydney Opera House
Sydney Opera House
The Sydney Opera House is a multi-venue performing arts centre in the Australian city of Sydney. It was conceived and largely built by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, finally opening in 1973 after a long gestation starting with his competition-winning design in 1957...
in 1983, she occasionally sang for special events such as the 80th birthday gala for Sylvia Fisher
Sylvia Fisher
Sylvia Fisher was an Australian operatic soprano whose stage career was made in England, who was especially distinguished in German opera, and who created the role of Miss Wingrave in Benjamin Britten's Owen Wingrave in 1971....
, and mentored many aspiring singers. The warm reception for Beaton at the Sydney Opera House in 1996, when she attended the gala to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Australian Opera Company, was as much an acknowledgement of her past performances as it was a reminder of how much audiences had missed her on stage in the intervening years. In 2006, at a gala for one hundred guests in honour of Beaton's own 80th birthday, she sang two Scottish songs, accompanied by Geoffrey Tozer
Geoffrey Tozer
Geoffrey Tozer was an Australian classical pianist and composer. As a child prodigy, he composed an opera at the age of eight, and became the youngest recipient of a Churchill Fellowship award at 13...
. "Still rich and glorious" declared the guest of honour, the renowned Australian opera star Lauris Elms
Lauris Elms
Lauris Margaret Elms AM OBE is an Australian contralto, renowned in opera and lieder.She was born in Springvale, Victoria, the daughter of Harry Britton and Jean Elms and trained with Katherine Wielaert in Melbourne. She first sang with the National Theatre Opera Company in 1952 in The Consul. ...
, when she heard Beaton's singing on that occasion.
Early life
Beaton was born in EdinburghEdinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...
, Scotland, on 2 July 1926. As a girl, Beaton studied music with her mother, Margaret. Feeling the need to contribute to the war effort, Beaton enlisted in the army in 1945 and devoted the next three years of her life to military service, singing as much as she could. Whenever the opportunity arose, Beaton would sing for the troops while fulfilling a variety of duties on different postings.
Training
In Edinburgh after World War II, Beaton studied singing initially with a renowned teacher, Joyce Fleming. At Fleming's suggestion, Beaton also began to attend the Collegium MusicumCollegium Musicum
The Collegium Musicum was one of several types of musical societies that arose in German and German-Swiss cities and towns during the Reformation and thrived into the mid-18th century...
sessions of Dr Hans Gál
Hans Gál
Hans Gál was a composer, teacher and pianist.Gál was born to a Jewish family in the small village of Brunn am Gebirge, Niederösterreich, just outside Vienna. He was trained in that city at the New Vienna Conservatory where later he taught for some time. While a student he won the K. und K...
which were a "unique feature of Edinburgh's musical life". Gál became an important influence in Beaton's development. He was a brilliant musician, a composer, pianist and scholar of great distinction. In March 1938, like other Jewish refugee families anxious to escape Hitler and the Nazis, Gál fled to England with his wife Hanna and their two sons. Later Gál was offered a position as Lecturer in Music at the University of Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...
.
In 1948, just as Beaton's prospects were moving in a positive direction, her life changed. Quite suddenly, in April, her mother died at the age of fifty. From then, until 1962, with the help of her aunt Barbara McGillivray, Beaton served a very long apprenticeship in singing in London. During the late 1950s she won a series of scholarships and prizes that enabled her, at last, to study singing full-time.
Career
In 1962, she made her debut in Berlin singing in Manuel de FallaManuel de Falla
Manuel de Falla y Matheu was a Spanish Andalusian composer of classical music. With Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados and Joaquín Turina he is one of Spain's most important musicians of the first half of the 20th century....
's Atlantida. After singing in Germany and England, having been invited by Richard Bonynge
Richard Bonynge
Richard Alan Bonynge, AO, CBE is an Australian conductor and pianist.Bonynge was born in Sydney and educated at Sydney Boys High School before studying piano at the Royal College of Music in London. He gave up his music scholarship, continuing his private piano studies, and became a coach for...
, she toured Australia with the Sutherland-Williamson International Grand Opera Company in 1965. In 1966, she recorded the role of Cathy in the complete recording of Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann
Bernard Herrmann was an American composer noted for his work in motion pictures.An Academy Award-winner , Herrmann is particularly known for his collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock, most famously Psycho, North by Northwest, The Man Who Knew Too Much, and Vertigo...
's Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights (Herrmann)
Wuthering Heights is the sole opera written by Bernard Herrmann. He worked on it from 1943 to 1951. It is cast in a prologue, 4 acts, and an epilogue that repeats the music of the prologue...
, under the composer's direction. The same year, she made another recording, this time for Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
, with Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
and another singer she also admired, the mezzo-soprano Margreta Elkins
Margreta Elkins
Margreta Elkins AM was an Australian mezzo-soprano of great renown. She sang at Covent Garden and with Opera Australia and other companies, but turned down offers to sing at the Metropolitan Opera, Bayreuth and Glyndebourne...
. Beaton sang with the Australian Opera from 1967 until early 1973, when she resigned and returned to London where she underwent surgery for a medical condition that had been troubling her for some time. She returned to Australia in 1976.
On 16 January 1983, at the Sydney Opera House, Beaton returned to public performance with a recital of operatic arias including "Voi lo sapete" (Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana
Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act by Pietro Mascagni to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro...
) "Son pochi fiori" (L'amico Fritz
L'amico Fritz
L'amico Fritz is an opera in three acts by Pietro Mascagni, premiered in 1891 from a libretto by P. Suardon , based on the French novel L'ami Fritz by Émile Erckmann and Pierre-Alexandre Chatrian.While the opera enjoyed some success in its day and is probably Mascagni's most famous work after...
), "O mio babbino caro
O mio babbino caro
"O mio babbino caro" is a soprano aria from the opera Gianni Schicchi , by Giacomo Puccini, to a libretto by Giovacchino Forzano. It is sung by Lauretta after tensions between her father Schicchi and the family of Rinuccio, the boy she loves, have reached a breaking point that threatens to...
" (Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi
Gianni Schicchi is a comic opera in one act by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Giovacchino Forzano, composed in 1917–18. The libretto is based on an incident mentioned in Dante's Divine Comedy. The work is the third and final part of Puccini's Il trittico —three one-act operas with...
), "Io son l'umile" (Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur
Adriana Lecouvreur is an opera in four acts by Francesco Cilea to an Italian libretto by Arturo Colautti, based on the play by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé...
), "L'altre notte" (Mefistofele
Mefistofele
Mefistofele is an opera in a prologue, four acts and an epilogue, the only completed opera by the Italian composer-librettist Arrigo Boito.-Composition history:...
) and "Suicidio" (La Gioconda
La Gioconda (opera)
La Gioconda is an opera in four acts by Amilcare Ponchielli set to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Angelo, tyran de Padoue, a play in prose by Victor Hugo, dating from 1835...
). With Elizabeth Allen she sang the duets "Songs My Mother Taught Me" (Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...
) and the "Barcarolle" from Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....
's The Tales of Hoffmann. In three beautiful unaccompanied Hebridean songs with which she closed the recital, Beaton sang a homage to her late Aunt Barbara and in remembrance of her mother, Margaret.
Dr Peter Wyllie Johnston, the Australian writer and composer, said that although Beaton lacked the support systems that are typically required for an operatic soprano, she made up for this by her strong character and resilience, and the focus of opera as her whole life.
Turandot
On 22 July 1967 Beaton sang her first TurandotTurandot
Turandot is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, set to a libretto in Italian by Giuseppe Adami and Renato Simoni.Though Puccini's first interest in the subject was based on his reading of Friedrich Schiller's adaptation of the play, his work is most nearly based on the earlier text Turandot...
to open the season at Her Majesty's Theatre
Her Majesty's Theatre, Melbourne
Her Majesty's Theatre is a 1706 seat theatre in Melbourne, Australia. Built in 1886, it is located at 219 Exhibition Street, Melbourne. It is classified by the National Trust of Australia and is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register....
in Melbourne. For five years between 1967 and 1971 Beaton sang Turandot many times in the Australian Opera's production, in most capital cities around the country. Listening to the live recording of one of those performances from Sydney, it is easy to understand why critics such as Felix Werder
Felix Werder
Felix Werder is an Australian-based German composer of classical and electronic music; also a noted critic and educator. The son of a distinguished liturgical composer, he has composed all his life; he has an international reputation and is one of Australia's most performed composers...
, James Glennon, Val Vallis, John Cargher
John Cargher
Pinchas Cargher AM, known professionally as John Cargher , was a British-born Australian music and ballet journalist and radio broadcaster....
and Kenneth Hince among many others were enormously impressed as Beaton's big, dramatic voice created vocal fireworks for the audience. She was vocally spectacular and visually resplendent in the heavily jewelled, padded costume and headdress designed for the production, with the enormous peacock train which was twenty-eight feet in length.