Sylvia Fisher

Sylvia Gwendoline Victoria Fisher (18 April 191025 August 1996) 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. Fisher was made a Member of the Order of Australia in the 1994 Australia Day Honours, for "service to the arts, particularly opera".

Early career in Australia Fisher was born in a private hospital in South Melbourne on 18 April 1910 to John and Margaret Maria Fisher (née Frawley).

She studied the piano from the age of nine, and afterwards entered the Albert Street Conservatorium for singing and voice production and obtained the full diploma. When this was completed she continued her singing studies with Adolf Spivakovsky, and worked with him for many years. She made her debut as a student in Lully's Cadmus et Hermione at the Comedy Theatre, Melbourne, on 5 March 1932, at the Lully Tercentenary Festival. This was her only stage appearance in opera in Australia, but she rapidly became well known there as a concert artist and broadcaster.

Her concert and broadcast repertoire included many operatic arias, and she sang in many broadcasts of complete operas, notably in the title role of Verdi's Aida, as Donna Anna (Mozart's Don Giovanni) and as Ortrud (Wagner's Lohengrin). She also established herself as a fine lieder and oratorio singer in Australia.

To England, 1947 It was as an established singer, therefore, that she went to England in 1947, and was first heard there in lieder recitals in BBC broadcasts. She joined the Covent Garden resident company in 1948 and rapidly gained approval. Her debut there was as Leonore (Beethoven's Fidelio), after which she appeared in several smaller parts such as the First Norn (Götterdämmerung) and the First Lady (The Magic Flute). She soon became the company's leading dramatic soprano. In 1949 she made a further powerful impression with her Countess in The Marriage of Figaro and her Elsa in Lohengrin, and also made her first and highly successful appearance in a role thereafter much identified with her, as the Marschallin in Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier.

In March 1954, Fisher married Ubaldo Gardini, an Italian-born violinist who worked at Covent Garden as an Italian language coach. Their marriage would later end in divorce.

Premieres In 1971, she created the role of the formidable Miss Wingrave in Benjamin Britten's Owen Wingrave, opposite Benjamin Luxon, Janet Baker, Heather Harper and Peter Pears. That performance is available on compact disc and DVD.