Listen to Rosina Raisbeck singing Wagner's Wesendonck Lieder here.
Australian-born, Ms. Raisbeck began her vocal studies at the New South Wales State Conservatory in Sydney in 1942.
After a concert tour of New Zealand, she sailed for London with her husband John Laurie, whom she had married in 1943. A letter of recommendation from Sir Eugene Goossens led to her audition at the recently formed Covent Garden Opera Compan, where she made her début as Maddalena in Rigoletto, later singing such roles as Flora in La Traviata, Second Lady in The Magic Flute, Mercedes in Carmen, and Wellgunde in Das Rheingold.
The eminent conductor Sir Thomas Beecham suggested to Ms. Raisbeck that she should re-work her voice as a dramatic soprano. She studied with the great tenor Dino Borgioli, and from 1950 onwards she sang such roles as Ortrud in Lohengrin, Senta in The Flying Dutchman, First Lady in The Magic Flute and Third Norn in Götterdämmerung. Her Ortrud won special recognition, both for her singing and for her imposing stage-presence which made her appear the very embodiment of evil in that role.
She returned to Australia for the birth of her son, and resumed singing in 1958 with performances as Ortrud and Beethoven's Leonore with the Elizabethan Trust Opera Company in Sydney.
Returning to London, she sang with Sadler's Wells Opera in 1959, as Senta, Elisabeth in Tannhäuser, and as the Mother in the British premiere of Dallapiccola's The Prisoner.
Ms. Raisbeck toured in a tremendously successful production of The Sound of Music, in which she sang the Mother Abbess:
Rosina Raisbeck - Climb Ev'ry Mountain ~ THE SOUND OF MUSIC
She gave concerts, including cabaret evenings, and then in 1969 she joined Australian Opera; from 1971 to her retirement, she appeared there in several of that Company's productions: as Marcellina in The Marriage of Figaro, as Akhrosimova in Prokofiev's War and Peace, as Widow Begbick in Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, and as Herodias in Salome. In 1977, Ms. Raisbeck sang the Zia Principessa in Puccini's Suor Angelica opposite Dame Joan Sutherland.
Rosina Raisbeck's career ended officially in 1985, with a highly successful performance as the First Prioress in Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites. She continued to sing for another three years, finally retiring in 1988 at the age of 72. She passed away in 2006.
~ Oberon