Richard Bonynge
Encyclopedia
Richard Alan Bonynge, AO
, CBE
(born 29 September 1930) is an Australian conductor
and pianist.
Bonynge (icon ) 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 singers. One of these was Joan Sutherland
, whom he had accompanied in Australia. They soon married and became a duo, first (until 1962) doing recital
s. When the current conductor for a recital of operatic arias became ill, Bonynge stepped in and, from that time on, he conducted virtually all of his wife's performances.
His debut as staged opera conductor took place in 1963 in Vancouver
, where he conducted Faust
. The same year, also in Vancouver, he conducted Norma
for the first time, starring Sutherland and Marilyn Horne
. He also conducted the English Chamber Orchestra
in many recordings.
By doing some research and reading up on Massenet
and Italian bel canto
composers, Richard Bonynge discovered Massenet's own statement about his opera Esclarmonde
being his "best achievement." This filled Bonynge with curiosity, even more because Esclarmonde had sunken almost into total oblivion and had hardly been performed at all since the end of the 19th century. He obtained a tattered vocal score
of it in Paris, and subsequently bought the full orchestral score from an auction in New York City. Although his wife, initially, was skeptical about it, Richard Bonynge became an enthusiast of the work and eventually convinced her that she should perform the role of Esclarmonde herself. And so the San Francisco Opera
and the Metropolitan Opera
premieres of it took place in 1974 and 1976 respectively.
In 1977 he was the founding Music Director of Vancouver Opera
Orchestra (at its creation), when he conducted Le roi de Lahore
staged there (in which also his wife took part).
Bonynge made his Metropolitan Opera debut on 12 December 1966, and his last performance there was on 6 April 1991. Most of those performances he conducted there between 1966 and 1987 were with his wife singing. In the beginning, his speciality (until early 1970s) was music of 18th and early 19th century, mostly in bel canto repertoire (Rossini, Bellini
and Donizetti
). He then gradually added also middle Verdi
(La traviata
, Rigoletto
, Il trovatore
), Offenbach
(Les Contes d'Hoffmann), then also Massenet (Esclarmonde and Werther
). He has also recorded Delibes
's three ballets – La Source, Coppélia
, and Sylvia
and Tchaikovsky
's three ballets – Swan Lake
, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker
.
Since 2007, he conducted a series of performances in a few opera houses around the U.S. (Florida Grand Opera
, Michigan Opera Theatre
), and now is mostly involved with the Opera Australia
company (Lucia di Lammermoor
in August 2008, and in 2006 for Opera Queensland
; I Capuleti e i Montecchi
in Melbourne
and Sydney in middle of 2009).
(CBE) for his services to music in 1977. In 1983, he was made Officer of the Order of Australia
, and in 1989 Commandeur of the L'Ordre national du Mérite
. In 2009, Bonynge was awarded the 2009 Sir Bernard Heinze
Memorial Award.
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
, CBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(born 29 September 1930) is an Australian conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...
and pianist.
Bonynge (icon ) was born in Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
and educated at Sydney Boys High School
Sydney Boys High School
Sydney Boys High School is an academically selective public secondary school for boys, located in the City of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, with 1,180 students, from years 7 to 12...
before studying piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
at the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
in London. He gave up his music scholarship, continuing his private piano studies, and became a coach for singers. One of these was 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....
, whom he had accompanied in Australia. They soon married and became a duo, first (until 1962) doing recital
Recital
A recital is a musical performance. It can highlight a single performer, sometimes accompanied by piano, or a performance of the works of a single composer.The invention of the solo piano recital has been attributed to Franz Liszt....
s. When the current conductor for a recital of operatic arias became ill, Bonynge stepped in and, from that time on, he conducted virtually all of his wife's performances.
His debut as staged opera conductor took place in 1963 in Vancouver
Vancouver
Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...
, where he conducted Faust
Faust (opera)
Faust is a drame lyrique in five acts by Charles Gounod to a French libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré from Carré's play Faust et Marguerite, in turn loosely based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Faust, Part 1...
. The same year, also in Vancouver, he conducted Norma
Norma (opera)
Norma is a tragedia lirica or opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini with libretto by Felice Romani after Norma, ossia L'infanticidio by Alexandre Soumet. First produced at La Scala on December 26, 1831, it is generally regarded as an example of the supreme height of the bel canto tradition...
for the first time, starring Sutherland and Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne
Marilyn Horne is an American mezzo-soprano opera singer. She specialized in roles requiring a large sound, beauty of tone, excellent breath support, and the ability to execute difficult coloratura passages....
. He also conducted the English Chamber Orchestra
English Chamber Orchestra
The English Chamber Orchestra is a British chamber orchestra based in London. The full orchestra regularly plays concerts at Cadogan Hall, and the ECO Ensemble performs at Wigmore Hall...
in many recordings.
By doing some research and reading up on Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...
and Italian bel canto
Bel canto
Bel canto , along with a number of similar constructions , is an Italian opera term...
composers, Richard Bonynge discovered Massenet's own statement about his opera Esclarmonde
Esclarmonde
Esclarmonde is an opéra in four acts and eight tableaux, with prologue and epilogue, by Jules Massenet, to a French libretto by Alfred Blau and Louis Ferdinand de Gramont....
being his "best achievement." This filled Bonynge with curiosity, even more because Esclarmonde had sunken almost into total oblivion and had hardly been performed at all since the end of the 19th century. He obtained a tattered vocal score
Vocal score
A vocal score or piano-vocal score is a music score of an opera, or a vocal or choral composition with orchestra such as an oratorio or cantata, in which the vocal parts are written out in full but the accompaniment is reduced and adapted for keyboard...
of it in Paris, and subsequently bought the full orchestral score from an auction in New York City. Although his wife, initially, was skeptical about it, Richard Bonynge became an enthusiast of the work and eventually convinced her that she should perform the role of Esclarmonde herself. And so the San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera
San Francisco Opera is an American opera company, based in San Francisco, California.It was founded in 1923 by Gaetano Merola and is the second largest opera company in North America...
and the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
premieres of it took place in 1974 and 1976 respectively.
In 1977 he was the founding Music Director of Vancouver Opera
Vancouver Opera
Vancouver Opera is the second largest performing arts organization in British Columbia and the largest opera company in western Canada.It performs in the Queen Elizabeth Theatre accompanied currently by the Vancouver Opera Orchestra, one of two specialized opera orchestras in Canada...
Orchestra (at its creation), when he conducted Le roi de Lahore
Le roi de Lahore
Le roi de Lahore is an opera in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Louis Gallet. It was first performed at the Palais Garnier in Paris on 27 April 1877....
staged there (in which also his wife took part).
Bonynge made his Metropolitan Opera debut on 12 December 1966, and his last performance there was on 6 April 1991. Most of those performances he conducted there between 1966 and 1987 were with his wife singing. In the beginning, his speciality (until early 1970s) was music of 18th and early 19th century, mostly in bel canto repertoire (Rossini, Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...
and Donizetti
Gaetano Donizetti
Domenico Gaetano Maria Donizetti was an Italian composer from Bergamo, Lombardy. His best-known works are the operas L'elisir d'amore , Lucia di Lammermoor , and Don Pasquale , all in Italian, and the French operas La favorite and La fille du régiment...
). He then gradually added also middle Verdi
Giuseppe Verdi
Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian Romantic composer, mainly of opera. He was one of the most influential composers of the 19th century...
(La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
, 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...
, Il trovatore
Il trovatore
Il trovatore is an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Salvadore Cammarano, based on the play El Trovador by Antonio García Gutiérrez. Cammarano died in mid-1852 before completing the libretto...
), 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....
(Les Contes d'Hoffmann), then also Massenet (Esclarmonde and Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
). He has also recorded Delibes
Léo Delibes
Clément Philibert Léo Delibes was a French composer of ballets, operas, and other works for the stage...
's three ballets – La Source, Coppélia
Coppélia
Coppélia is a sentimental comic ballet with original choreography by Arthur Saint-Léon to a ballet libretto by Saint-Léon and Charles Nuitter and music by Léo Delibes. It was based upon two macabre stories by E. T. A. Hoffmann, Der Sandmann , and Die Puppe...
, and Sylvia
Sylvia (ballet)
Sylvia, originally Sylvia, ou La nymphe de Diane, is a full-length ballet in two or three acts, first choreographed by Louis Mérante to music by Léo Delibes in 1876. Sylvia is a typical classical ballet in many respects, yet it has many interesting features which make it unique...
and Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Russian: Пётр Ильи́ч Чайко́вский ; often "Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky" in English. His names are also transliterated "Piotr" or "Petr"; "Ilitsch", "Il'ich" or "Illyich"; and "Tschaikowski", "Tschaikowsky", "Chajkovskij"...
's three ballets – Swan Lake
Swan Lake
Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...
, The Sleeping Beauty, and The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker
The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...
.
Since 2007, he conducted a series of performances in a few opera houses around the U.S. (Florida Grand Opera
Florida Grand Opera
Florida Grand Opera is an American opera company based in Miami, Florida. FGO was created in 1994 from the consolidation of two opera companies in the Miami-Fort Lauderdale region:...
, Michigan Opera Theatre
Michigan Opera Theatre
Michigan Opera Theatre is Michigan's principal opera company. The company is based in Detroit, where it performs in the Detroit Opera House. Each year it presents an opera and dance season. The company usually presents five operas in their original language with English supertitles and hosts five...
), and now is mostly involved with the Opera Australia
Opera Australia
Opera Australia is the principal opera company in Australia. Based in Sydney, its performance season at the Sydney Opera House runs for approximately eight months of the year, with the remainder of its time spent in the The Arts Centre in Melbourne...
company (Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
in August 2008, and in 2006 for Opera Queensland
Opera Queensland
Opera Queensland is an opera company based in Brisbane, Queensland. The company was founded with funding from the Queensland State Government in 1981, then under the name Lyric Opera of Queensland, after the Queensland Opera Company was closed in December 1980.It is after Opera Australia the second...
; I Capuleti e i Montecchi
I Capuleti e i Montecchi
I Capuleti e i Montecchi is an Italian opera in two acts by Vincenzo Bellini.The libretto by Felice Romani was a reworking of the story of Romeo and Juliet for an opera by Nicola Vaccai called Giulietta e Romeo. This was based on Italian sources rather than taken directly from Shakespeare...
in Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
and Sydney in middle of 2009).
Honours
Richard Bonynge was made Commander of the Order of the British EmpireOrder of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(CBE) for his services to music in 1977. In 1983, he was made Officer of the Order of Australia
Order of Australia
The Order of Australia is an order of chivalry established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, "for the purpose of according recognition to Australian citizens and other persons for achievement or for meritorious service"...
, and in 1989 Commandeur of the L'Ordre national du Mérite
Ordre National du Mérite
The Ordre national du Mérite is an Order of State awarded by the President of the French Republic. It was founded on 3 December 1963 by President Charles de Gaulle...
. In 2009, Bonynge was awarded the 2009 Sir Bernard Heinze
Bernard Heinze
Sir Bernard Thomas Heinze, AC was an Australian Professor of Music, conductor, and Director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music....
Memorial Award.
External links
- Richard Bonynge: Biography on Melba Records website
- "Richard Bonynge: Maestro of bel canto"
- Dame Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge performing at Opera in the Park
- http://nla.gov.au/nla.pic-an24751443Joan Sutherland and Luciano PavarottiLuciano Pavarottiright|thumb|Luciano Pavarotti performing at the opening of the Constantine Palace in [[Strelna]], 31 May 2003. The concert was part of the celebrations for the 300th anniversary of [[St...
on with Richard Bonynge in concert at the Sydney Opera House, 1983] - Bruce Duffie's interview with Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge
- Bonynge looking to his Irish roots – Opera~Opera article 2005
- Richard Bonynge material in the National Library of Australia's collection
- Biography of Richard Bonynge at Colbert Artists