Three more Aussie sopranos

In researching ‘From Melba to Sutherland: Australian Singers on Record’, aside from the A-listers that I posted recently, all sorts of others came out of the woodwork. For example:

Syria Lamonte: (above) The only things that seemed to be known about her was that she was a ‘singing barmaid’ at Rules Restaurant in London, an Aussie (probably), and that she made among the first recordings outside America – in 1898.

Violet Mount: Who, unable to get into opera in London, went on the music halls masked as ‘L’Incognita’. There was speculation as to who she really was. The great Tetrazzini moonlighting, for example?

Lorna Sydney: A superb mezzo from Perth, who was interned in Austria as an alien in WW2, then went on to sing 47 leading roles at the State Opera in Vienna.

 

Top ten (Aussie) sopranos

Someone started a thread on the unofficial BBC Radio 3 messageboards asking for nominations for the top ten sopranos.

It seemed to me that the emerging lists were filled with the usual suspects, and since I’m currently in the process (with Tony Locantro) of finishing up a 4 x CD set for Decca Australia entitled ‘From Melba to Sutherland: Australian Singers on Record’, this is the list I offered:

Nellie Melba
Frances Alda
Elsa Stralia
Florence Austral
Margherita Grandi
Marjorie Lawrence
Sylvia Fisher
Joan Hammond
Elsie Morison
Joan Sutherland

What a team. Other nominations?