Operatic Work and Expanding Repertoire
In 1910 Austin commenced his regular operatic career, appearing as Wotan and Wanderer, and doubling as Gunther, in the Edinburgh Denhof Company Ring cycle under Michael Balling. He also appeared in two Ring cyles at Covent Garden. At Hereford he performed the traditional Festival-opening Elijah (and again in 1911), and gave the premiere of Bantock's Gethsemene, and in London repeated the Omar Khayyam. For the Philharmonic Society he gave songs by Ethel Smyth under her direction. In 1911 he was also singing concert performances of The Damnation of Faust (Berlioz) and Faust (Gounod), Dvořák choral works, Handel oratorios, Beethoven Missa Solemnis, the Mozart and Brahms Requiems, Max Bruch's Frithjof and Lay of the Bell, Mendelssohn's St Paul and Walpurgis nacht, and many other works.
In 1912 Beecham took the Denhof Ring cycle to Glasgow, Hull, Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester, and in these years Austin also appeared with them in the first English Elektra (Richard Strauss), as Kunrad in Feuersnot, Dr Coppelius in Tales of Hoffmann, Gratiano in Così fan tutte, Tomasso in Tiefland (Eugen d’Albert), Escamillo in Carmen and as Vanderdecken in The Flying Dutchman. In 1913 the Denhof Company was wound up and reformed as the Beecham Company, and until around 1920 Austin appeared for Beecham also as Wolfram (Tannhäuser), Iago (Otello), Ford (Falstaff), Hans Sachs (Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg), and in Madame Butterfly, La bohème, Pagliacci, Joseph Holbrooke's Dylan, and other works.
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Famous quotes containing the words operatic, work, expanding and/or repertoire:
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