Donald Smith & June Bronhill - ONLY MAKE BELIEVE

Australians DONALD SMITH (tenor) & JUNE BRONHILL (soprano) sing the duet 'ONLY MAKE BELIEVE', from a live recording of a variety concert for the flood victims of Darwin. Introduced by the compare Sir David Frost.

. Although DONALD SMITH and JUNE BRONHILL performed together on many occasion both in Australia and overseas during their illustrious careers, Donald never performed on stage together with June in an operatic performance. That distinction was left to Donald's son, tenor ROBIN DONALD who was June's leading man in the Puccini opera 'LA RONDINE' with the South Australian Opera company in 1977.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• donald
• smith;june
• bronhill;only
• make
• believe;concert
• for
• darwin;david
• frost

[robmanrico]

Thanks for your comment and pleased you enjoyed the post

[ballaratboy]

Thank you for this lovely treat. What a shame June and Don didn't record an album together!

[robmanrico]

Although June & Don never recorded an 'official' album, there are many other independent recordings of them singing together, which will soon find their way here. Whilst they often sang together in 'concert' and in the 'club scene' throughout Australia, they never actually peformed together on stage in opera.

However Don's Son Robin Donald did have that distinction, performing on stage in opera with June in Puccini's opera 'La Rondine' (the Swallow) in Adelaide for the South Australian Opera.

[dollartwenty]

Lovely to listen to these two (now departed) great Australian voices. A small point; the concert (in London) was for the victims of Cyclone Tracy that totally destroyed Darwin in the early hours of Christmas Day 1974. Joan Sutherland was also on the bill.

[robmanrico]

The recording that is posted here from this particular concert featuring June and Donald was in fact taken from the 'Concert for Darwin' recorded live at the Sydney Opera House in 1974.

The concert with Joan Sutherland was a different concert, (which also took place at the Sydney Opera House). At this concert Joan and Donald sang the duet from the Donizetti opera 'Maria Stuarda', with Richard Boynage accompanying on piano. A post of this duet will also be on Youtube in the near future.

[MrLawman4]

@robmanrico Hi I was the producer of the Opera House Concert for Darwin a wonderful surprise to see this on YouTube. We also repeated the concert at the Palais Theatre in Melbourne a few days later.

[rockgor]

Very nice. I used to have some Bronhill records. Got rid of

my collection when I moved. Still have CDs of Smith: Carmen and

Ernie. Nice to hear the two of them together.

Tnx for posting.

[Contrubas]

This is great. An era long gone and singers like this also long gone.  No-one does it like this anymore.

[ballaratboy]

Thanks robmanrico, I will look forward to hearing anything you have of these great artists. I remember seeing June and Don together at the Manly RSL club back in the late 1970's. Cheers, Ballaratboy.