Yvonne Minton

Yvonne Fay Minton CBE is an Australian-born but mostly British-resident opera singer. She is variously billed as a soprano, mezzo-soprano or contralto. A native of Sydney, she studied voice while on a scholarship at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music. She won the £1000 Shell Aria, run in conjunction with the 1960 National Eisteddfod, Canberra. By this stage she had become one of the country's leading contraltos, often appearing on radio and television and with the Sydney and Queensland orchestras. Minton left Australia in 1961 to pursue her studies in London. The same year, she won the Kathleen Ferrier Prize for the best contralto at the International Vocal Competition 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands. Her first major part in England was as Maggie Dempster in the premiere of Nicholas Maw's One Man Show. She sang the role of Clotilde on the 1965 Decca recording of Bellini's Norma. Shortly thereafter, she became a regular member of the company of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, appearing in such roles as Lola in Cavalleria rusticana. She created the role of Thea in Tippett's The Knot Garden and appeared at the Cologne Opera from 1969.

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