Submitted by
Matthew Barker
Monica Sinclair
The Independent
May 13th, 2002
Monica Sinclair
Genuine and versatile contralto
13 May 2002
Monica Sinclair was that increasingly rare bird, a genuine contralto. She
sang with the recently formed Covent Garden Opera Company (later the Royal
Opera) during the 1950s and 1960s, taking on an amazing variety of roles in
different styles, from Mozart to Verdi, from Wagner to Britten. At
Glyndebourne she demonstrated equal versatility; her repertory ranging from
Rossini via Bellini to Richard Strauss. She sang frequently with Joan
Sutherland, scoring many of her finest triumphs - and one disaster - under
the aegis of the famous soprano.
Sinclair was born in Evercreech, Somerset, and studied at the Royal Academy
of Music. She made her operatic début in 1948, singing Suzuki in Madama
Butterfly with the Carl Rosa Opera. The following year she joined Covent
Garden, making her début as the Second Boy in The Magic Flute. During her
first season she also sang Maddalena in Rigoletto, Mrs Sedley in Peter
Grimes, Feodor in Boris Godunov, Suzuki and Rosette in Manon, Flosshilde in
Das Rheingold and Siegrune in Die Walküre.
In 1950/51, she added Azucena in Il trovatore and Pauline in The Queen of
Spades, one of her best early roles, in which she accompanied herself on the
harpsichord. She also took part in the first of several first performances,
as a Heavenly Body in The Pilgrim's Progress (1951) by Vaughan Williams. In
1952 she sang Margret in the British stage premiere of Berg's Wozzeck and
appeared in two travesty roles, as Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro and
and as Herodias' Page in Salome.
Sinclair sang the Countess of Essex in the first performance of Britten's
Gloriana in 1953; she sang Evadne in the world premiere of William Walton's
Troilus and Cressida in 1954, and a Voice in the first performance of
Michael Tippett's The Midsummer Marriage in 1955. Later she sang Sosostris
in that opera as well. Other new roles during those years included Mercedes
in Carmen and the Voice of Antonia's Mother in The Tales of Hoffmann. She
also recorded several of the contralto roles in Gilbert and Sullivan.
She made her début at Glyndebourne in 1954 as Ragonde in Rossini's Le Comte
Ory, a comic role that suited her particularly well. Other parts that she
sang at Glyndebourne included Berta in Il barbiere di Siviglia and
Marcellina in Le nozze di Figaro (the same character in Beaumarchais'
originals) in 1955, Dryade in Ariadne auf Naxos in 1957 and Queen Henrietta
in Bellini's I Puritani, with Joan Sutherland as Elvira, in 1960.
Returning to Covent Garden in the 1959/60 season, Sinclair found several
congenial new roles. The first was Annina in Der Rosenkavalier, in a revival
conducted by Georg Solti, making his Covent Garden début, with Elisabeth
Schwarzkopf and Sena Jurinac. Then came Bradamante in Handel's Alcina,
directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli, with Sutherland in the title
role. Sinclair was an excellent Handel singer, as she had shown in 1959 as
Juno in Semele for the Handel Opera Society, at Sadler's Wells Theatre.
Further roles at Covent Garden included Theodosia, the housekeeper in Die
Schweigsame Frau, the Old Prioress in Poulenc's Dialogue des Carmélites,
Marfa in Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina, Emilia in Otello and, best of all, the
Marquise de Birkenfeld, with Sutherland as Marie, and a youthful Luciano
Pavarotti as Tonie.
Sinclair accompanied Sutherland on a tour of Australia in 1965. Arsace in
Rossini's Semiramide at Florence in 1968 with Sutherland in the title role
was a mistake, one of the few in Sinclair's career.
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