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Born: August 15, 1924 - Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Died: April 5, 2016 - Prague, Czech Republic |
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The Australian soprano, Elsie Morrison, studied with Clive Carey both at the Melbourne Conservatory and at the Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM).
Elsie Morrison made her English concert debut at the Royal Albert Hall in Acis and Galatea in 1948 and that autumn joined Sadler's Wells Opera, appearing regularly there until 1954. She was ideally cast when she sang Anne Trulove in the first British staging of The Rake's Progress in 1953 in Edinburgh, and at her Glyndebourne debut the following year. After a notable Covent Garden debut in 1953 as Mimi, she sang there regularly until 1962. In such roles as Susanna, Pamina, Marzelline, Micaela, Antonia (Les contes d'Hoffmann), Marenka, and Blanche in the British premiere of Francis Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites in 1958, she was admired for the touching sincerity of her acting and the lyrical warmth of her voice. In 1955 she created the title role of Arwel Hughes's Menna for the Welsh National Opera.
Among her recordings, those of Purcell, George Frideric Handel and Tippett's A Child of our Time capture well the grace and conviction of her singing. She was married to the conductor Rafael Kubelík. |
