Maureen Forrester OBITUARIES Feisty contralto who inherited Kathleen Ferrier's Mahlerian mantle and became a popular operatic diva

• Published in: Daily telegraph (London, England : 1969)
• Format: Newspaper Article
• Language: English
• Published: London (UK) Daily Telegraph 21.06.2010
• Subjects: Forrester, Maureen Katherine Stuart; Mahler, Gustav; Walter, Bruno
• ISSN: 0307-1235

[Bruno Walter], a one-time student of [Gustav Mahler]'s who had conducted the British premiere of the symphony in 1931, was looking for a new "coloured voice" after the death of Kathleen Ferrier in 1953. He found his answer in [Maureen Katherine Stuart Forrester]. However, what she liked more than the music was that the conductor "when he met you... would begin not by asking how you were, but how the children were". Although she came to opera later in life -- recitals and symphonic performances dominating her early career -- when she did so it was with enthusiasm and wit. The roles she was offered, she recalled in 1994, revolved around "mothers, maids, witches, bitches, mediums, nuns, aunts and pants", adding: "I never get to play the bride." The witch in Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel was a particular favourite and Maureen Forrester -- a 54-year-old grandmother with a bad back by the time of her performance in San Diego in 1984 -- enjoyed alarming the stagehands as she flew through the air suspended by a wire. In London Maureen Forrester made "an extremely favourable impression" at the Wigmore Hall in 1956, according to one critic, and appeared in Verdi's Requiem under Malcolm Sargent at the Proms the following year. She sang for Princess Margaret in 1958 during a royal visit to Vancouver (with Walter) and two years later took part in Lorin Maazel's London debut, again in the Mahler. She lived for a time in Connecticut, but in 1963 settled in Toronto, often giving up to 120 performances a year.