Murray Dickie
Murray Dickie (1924-1995) was an opera singer and director, musical director and artistic director.
Contents
Biography
Born in Bishopton, Scotland, on 3 April 1924, he had his first vocal training in Glasgow. He afterwards studied in Vienna with S. Polmann, in London with Dino Borgioli and in Milan with Guido Farinelli.
In the years 1947–1955 he established himself as a singer, notably at Covent Garden and Glyndebourne, also appearing at La Scala, the Paris Opera, the Edinburgh, Holland, Salzburg and Bregenz Festivals, the Metropolitan Opera and many other theatres. in 1952 he had joined the Vienna State Opera, where he remained for the rest of his singing career.
In 1982 he relocated to South Africa to take up a directorial position at the Cape Performing Arts Board's Opera Company. He died in Cape Town on 19 June 1995, aged 71.
Among his awards have been the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, 1st class (1975) and an OBE New Year Honours in the same year.
Contribution to SA theatre, film, media and/or performance
In 1982 he was appointed Artistic Director of CAPAB Opera. The appointment of Dickie to this role paved the way for the stabilization and expansion of a local opera corps. Dickey was responsible for the much needed development of local singers from chorus members to principal singers. It was during this time that the first black singers joined the CAPAB chorus, of which at least two, Virginia Davids and Sidwell Hartman, progressed to principal singers. During Dickie’s reign of seven years, the repertoire of the company included a balance of Italian and German opera. They performed many Mozart operas and Dickey was responsible for the South African premières of a number of Wagner’s operas, amongst others Die Walküre, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (1987) and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier (1986) and Otello (with Jon Vickers, 1984).
Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Dickie
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituaries-murray-dickie-1588898.html
Wayne Muller. 2018. A reception history of opera in Cape Town: Tracing the development of a distinctly South African operatic aesthetic (1985–2015). Unpublished PhD thesis.
Alexandra Xenia Sabina Mossolow[1]. 2003. The career of South African soprano Nellie du Toit, born 1929. Unpublished Masters thesis. University of Stellenbosch.[2]
Hilde Roos. 2010. 'Opera Production in the Western Cape: Strategies in Search of Indigenisation'. Unpublished PhD thesis. Stellenbosch University.
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