1969 PARTICIPANTS AS OF SEMI FINALS

SOPRANOS

Branca Beretovac (YU)	Elise Cousins  (USA)	Geraldine Hackett-Jones (AUSTRALIA)
Leslie Johnson (USA)	Klesie Kelly (USA)	Monique Laserre  (FR)
Barbara Martig-Tüller  (SWISS)	Marina Mirea  (RO)	Maria Slatinaru  (RO)

ALTOS & TENORS

BARITONES & BASSES

Hans Georg Ahrens (bs - GE)	John Bröcheler (bt – NL)	Maurice Brown (bs – CA)
Brian Rayner Cook (bt – UK)	Robert Lloyd (bs – UK)	José de Oliveira Lopes (bt ­ PORT)
Gheorghe Sara (bs – RO)	Wolfgang Schöne (bt – GE)	Hubert Waber (bs – NL)
Walker Wyatt (bt – USA)	Dan Zancu (bb – RO)	Josef Baert (bt - BE)

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BIOGRAPHIES OF NON WINNERS WITH CAREERS

Patricia Payne

‘There was no Second Prize for mezzos, not even for the outstanding sound of Patricia Payne.’ (Jan Willem Hofstra, De Volkskrant, September 1969)

While Kathleen Ferrier Prize winner 1969, Else Paaske, did have a career on the concert stage, it is also very clear that Patricia Payne's star-potential as an operatic alto was fully recognized by the 1969 IVC audience and the press, which does leaves one wondering about the motives of the Jury then. Naturally, these were not communicated, for the IVC was not a forerunner – and is still not a runner-up – to Idols and the like, where they key amusement factor is to publicly humiliate any given singer who is not yet up to the task. To my best knowledge, singers can seek council with individual Jury members, and they have generally been known to help them with individual advice, given in private. Given the harsh public attacks at the Jury’s verdict in this year, I feel compelled to explain the statutory aims of the IVC here once again, since these are to promote and stimulate young singers. If that is by giving them the last push onto the stage by putting them in the limelight with awarding them a prize, or by them proving us wrong, is irrelevant. What matters is that they took the experience of having competed here, and used it to their advantage. In Payne’s case, her faith in the IVC Jury’s judgement is demonstrated by her reentering the IVC competition in 1972, when she won the Kathleen Ferrier Prize. {HYPER TO WINNERS 1972} Tellingly, that prize also signaled the start of her career in earnest, which means that she must have have used the three years in between to perfect her voice.

After winning the 1966 Sydney Sun Aria Competition in Australia, New Zealand born alto Patricia Payne (Dunedin, August 3, 1942) was able to continue her studies in London. By 1967 she entered the London Opera Center and studied with IVC Jury member of the first decade Roy Henderson, and with Peter Harrison, Vera Rosza, Hans Hotter and Carlo Ricci. Around the time of her first IVC participation she was already giving recitals on the concert platform, mostly in oratorio. Her Kathleen Ferrier Prize in Den Bosch 1972 led to oratorio, concert and recital engagements in several European cities. By 1974 she performed also with the Händel Society in London. Her career started taking off in earnest when she successfully auditioned for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in 1974, and was awarded a Principal Soloist contract. She debuted there as Schwertleite in the Nibelungenring, and. Likewise in 1974 she sang La Cica in La Gioconda, in Barcelona. In 1975 she was Erda there in Wagners Nibelungenring. In 1975 she had her big break-through at Covent Garden, her she landed beefy parts such as Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera, Azucena in Il trovatore, Ernster Norn and Erda in the Nibelungering. In 1976 she appeared as Erda in Frankfurt. In 1977 she made her Bayreuther Festspiele debut as Schwertleite in Die Walküre . In that year she also debuted at the San Francisco Opera, followed by a 1978 debut as Ulrica at La Scala Milan. In 1979 she debuted at the Hamburg Opera, and in Geneva, in 1980 in Chicago and at the Arena di Verona. In 1981 at Teatro Communale Florence, following which she joined the roster of the metropolitan House in New York, where she debuted in 1980 as La Cieca. Over the next two decades Patricia sang many roles at Covent Garden, and increasingly abroad in the great opera houses of the world: La Scala Milan, Verona Arena, Florence, Genoa, Torino, Lecce, Palermo, Paris, Nice, Orange, Avignon, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Bonn, Bayreuth, Stuttgart, Geneva, The Metropolitan New York, San Francisco, Chicago, New Orleans, Boston, and many leading roles with Welsh National Opera, Scottish Opera and Opera North in the UK – and with a galaxy of international singers (Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras, Plácido Domingo, Jon Vickers, Grace Bumbry, Montserrat Caballe, Jessye Norman, Kiri te Kanawa, Birgit Nilsson) and conductors (Sir Colin Davis, Sir Georg Solti, Richard Armstrong, Sir Neville Mariner, Sir John Pritchard, Claudio Abbado, Sir Michael Tippett). She appeared in a wide repertoire ranging repertoire from Bach and Handel to the great mezzo roles of Verdi, Wagner and Richard Strauss to Stravinsky, Tippett and Britten. In 2001 Payne was awarded an ONZM for ‘services to opera and the community,’ and in 2007 the University of Otago conferred on her the degree of Doctor of Music honoris causa.

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Discography
Patricia Payne also appeared in a good number of recordings, among them studio recordings of Un ballo in maschera (Philips), Peter Grimes (Philips), and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis (Philips). Her Gioconda from la Scala was preserved in a broadcast recording, along with a great number of her other roles, such as Schwertleite (1974 Covent Garden, 1977 Bayreuth), Erda in Das Rheingold (1975 Covent Garden with Robert Lloyd), Filipyevna in Evgeni Onegin (1976 Covent Garden), Jocaste in Oedipus Rex (1982, genova), Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera (1976 Nice, 1978 Covent Garden with José Carreras and Sylvia Sass), Fricka in Die Walküre (1984 Cardiff), Mother Goose in The rake’s progress (1982 Covent Garden), and many more.

Videography

Patricia Payne's broadcast videography includes some memorable performances with important csts, although these broadcasts from the video days are preserved in mediocre quality only. We mention:

Ulrica in Un ballo in maschera (1980 Chicago with Luciano Pavarotti and Renata Scotto )

Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande (1980 Madrid),

Cornelia in Giulio Cesare (1982 Barcelona wih Montserrat Caballé)

In addition to her recordings for Philips, Phonogram and EMI, she has made opera videos for the BBC.