I was around fourteen when my mother took me to the opera for the first time. I think it was her first time too – not really her cup of tea. She knew that I had grown to love classical music, so this seemed a good next step.
We went to the Hippodrome in nearby Coventry to see Bizet’s Carmen. Performing it was the Sadler’s Wells company, on tour from London. Carmen was the sultry Patricia Johnson, and the Australian tenor, Donald Smith, her ill-used lover Don José. Colin Davis was the dazzling, youthful conductor.
I was utterly entranced from the first notes… The music, the story, the characters, the costumes and designs, the lights. The brilliant singing and playing. It sparked a life-long love affair.
Here is Donald Smith singing the Flower Song from Carmen – from that production, recorded in 1961: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q74t8LhATuM
And on Friday I shall have the pleasure of meeting another fine Australian tenor who was a leading member of the Sadler’s Wells company in the 1960s, Kevin Miller.
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