(soprano) with BBC Orchestra (Section B
Leader, Paul Beard
Conductor, Sir Adrian Boult
As a child in the Australian Bush, Florence Austral was more at home with horses than with music. She used to sing little. songs as an amateur, and then for the fun of the thing entered for a competitive musical festival in her teens. She was heard by the director of the .Melbourne Conservatoire and became a student there. She came to England and studied at the London School of Opera ; went to New York and. had the unique distinction of being offered without previous experience an engagement at the Metropolitan Opera House-which she turned down.
She made her operatic debut in 1922 at Covent Garden as Briinnhilde in The Valkyrie and achieved a sensational success. She is recognised as one of the greatest operatic singers of our time