Minton, Yvonne (Fay)
Minton, Yvonne (Fay)
Minton, Yvonne (Fay), noted Australian mezzo-soprano; b. Sydney, Dec. 4, 1938. She studied with Marjorie Walker in Sydney and with Henry Cummings and Joan Cross in London; won the Kathleen Ferrier Prize and the ’s Hertogenbosch Competition (both 1961). She sang the role of Maggie Dempster in the premiere of Maw’s One Man Show (London, 1964). She made her Covent Garden debut in London as Lola in Cavalleria rusticana (1965), and subsequently sang there regularly; also sang at the Cologne Opera (from 1969) and at the Bayreuth Festivals (from 1974). She made her first appearance in the U.S. in Chicago (1970), and her Metropolitan Opera debut in N.Y. as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier on March 16, 1973; also appeared in concerts with the Chicago Sym. Orch. In 1983 she retired from the operatic stage, but continued her concert career. She resumed an active career in 1990 with an engagement in Florence. In 1994 she made her debut at the Glyndebourne Festival as Madame Larina in Eugene Onegin. In 1980 she was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire. Among her finest roles were Gluck’s Orfeo, Cherubino, Sextus in La clemenza di Tito, Dorabella, Waltraube, Fricka, Dido, and Brangäne; she also created the role of Thea in Tippett’s The Knot Garden (1970) and sang the role of the Countess in the first perf. of the complete version of Berg’s Lulu (1979).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire