Sir Alan Charles MacLaurin Mackerras (; (17 November 1925 – 14 July 2010) was an American-born Australian conductor who lived for most of his adult life in London. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. He was long associated with the English National Opera (and its predecessor) and Welsh National Opera, and was the first Australian chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He also specialized in Czech music as a whole, and his discography includes many recordings for the Czech label Supraphon among other labels. The New Grove Dictionary of Opera states that "his influence on the British opera scene, as a conductor both scholarly and mettlesome, has been significant".
Early life and education Mackerras was born in Schenectady, New York, to Australian parents, Alan Mackerras and Catherine MacLaurin. His father was an electrical engineer and a Quaker. Mackerras grew up in a musical family and his mother was immensely cultured. In 1928, when Charles was aged two, the family returned to Sydney. They initially lived in the suburb of Rose Bay, and in 1933 they moved to the then semi-rural suburb of Turramurra. Mackerras was the eldest of seven children. His siblings were Alastair (1928–99), Neil (1930–87), Joan (1934–2020), Elisabeth (b. 1937) and twins Malcolm and Colin (b. 1939).Simeone, Nigel. "Sir Charles Mackerras (1925–2010): A Lifetime of Gilbert and Sullivan" (Part I), Gilbert and Sullivan News, Vol. V, No. 9, Autumn/Winter 2015, pp. 12–14, The Gilbert and Sullivan Society They are descendants of the pioneer Australian-Jewish composer and musician Isaac Nathan. Mackerras studied violin at the age of seven and later the flute. He was setting poems to music at eight and wrote a piano concerto when he was 12.
Mackerras initially attended his father's alma mater, Sydney Grammar School, and also St Aloysius College in Sydney. While at Sydney Grammar, he showed a precocious talent by composing operas and conducting student performances in his early teens, but his non-musical studies suffered. At the all-male St Aloysius, he participated in the school's Gilbert and Sullivan productions, playing the roles of Kate in The Pirates of Penzance, Leila in Iolanthe and Ko-Ko in The Mikado. Unconvinced that music was a viable profession, his parents removed the young Mackerras from temptation by sending him to board at The King's School. The school's focus on sport and discipline led the young artist to run away several times, and he was eventually expelled. At age 16, Mackerras studied oboe, piano and composition at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music. He earned additional income from writing orchestral scores from recordings.
Early career By 1941, while still at the conservatorium, Mackerras began to get professional performing jobs in Sydney, partly because he was too young to join the military, while older musicians had been called up to go to the war. In 1941 and 1942, Mackerras played the oboe for the J. C. Williamson Company during one of their Gilbert and Sullivan seasons, and he was a rehearsal pianist for the Kirsova ballet company. In 1943, Mackerras joined the ABC Sydney Orchestra, under Malcolm Sargent, as second oboist and at age 19, became principal oboist. On 1947, Mackerras sailed for England on the RMS Rangitiki intending to pursue conducting. He joined Sadler's Wells Theatre as an orchestral oboist and cor anglais player. He later won a British Council Scholarship, enabling him to study conducting with Václav Talich at the Prague Academy of Music. While there, he formed a strong friendship with Jiří Tancibudek, Principal Oboe of the Czech Philharmonic, who introduced him to the operas of Leoš Janáček, thus commencing Mackerras's lifelong passion for that composer's music.
In August 1947, shortly before the couple set off for Prague, Mackerras married Judy Wilkins, a clarinettist at Sadlers' Wells. They had two daughters, Fiona and Catherine. Fiona died of cancer in September 2006. He was also the uncle of the Australian conductor Alexander Briger and the British-born American conductor Drostan Hall, music director of Camerata Chicago.
Returning to England from Prague in 1948, Mackerras rejoined Sadler's Wells Opera as a member of the music staff, making his debut on 28 October 1948 with Die Fledermaus, followed by Cavalleria rusticana and Rigoletto during his first season, by the end of which he was listed as an assistant conductor.Rosenthal, Harold. People, 82 - Charles Mackerras. Opera, April 1970, Vol. 21 No. 4, p. 291-296. After adding The Bartered Bride, Così fan tutte and Madama Butterfly the following season, he led the first stage performance in England of Janáček's Káťa Kabanová in April 1951, having been in charge of the musical preparation, replacing the scheduled conductor.Harewood. Opera Diary Sadler's Wells - Katya Kabanova (Janacek). April 10 & 14. Opera, June 1951, Vol. 2 No. 7, p. 368. This began his lifelong association with the Sadler's Wells Opera, now English National Opera, conducting, among others, Janáček, Handel, Gluck, Bach, and Donizetti. In 1956 Mackerras conducted the premiere of Berkeley's Ruth at the Scala Theatre by the English Opera Group.Porter, Andrew. Scala Theatre (English Opera Group). Opera, November 1956, Vol. 7 No. 11, p. 699-703.
In the 1950s, well before the "authenticity" movement had come to general notice, Mackerras focused on the study and practical realization of period performance techniques, culminating in his landmark 1959 recording of Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks using the original wind band instrumentation."From where I sit", Gramophone, December 1999, p. 29. In his 1965 performance of The Marriage of Figaro, he added the ornamentation in a historically informed style. He conducted both modern instruments playing in an authentic style and period instrument groups such as the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.Seckerson, Edward. News & Views - Establishing his Way. Gramophone, April 1988, p. 1398-1399.
Mackerras also strongly championed the music of Janáček outside Czechoslovakia, where Mackerras himself judged his work with Janáček as his single most important legacy to music. In 1951, he conducted the British premiere of Káťa Kabanová. He was also a noted authority on Mozart's operas and those of Sir Arthur Sullivan. His ballet with John Cranko, Pineapple Poll, is an arrangement of Sullivan music with a story based on one of W. S. Gilbert's Bab Ballads. The piece premiered in 1951, soon after the expiration of copyright on Sullivan's music, and continues to be a popular light music favourite in English speaking countries. Mackerras later arranged music by Giuseppe Verdi for the ballet The Lady and the Fool in 1954. He also selected and edited a suite from John Ireland's score for the 1946 film set in Australia The Overlanders, after Ireland's death in 1962.Searle, Muriel V. John Ireland - The man and his music. Midas Books, Tunbridge Wells, 1979, p. 121.
He was principal conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra from 1954 to 1956. In 1955 he conducted the musical excerpts in a six-part series on the BBC Home Service, "Hugh Burden, Clive Morton and Richard Hurndall in 'Gilbert and Sullivan'".BBC Home Service - "Hugh Burden, Clive Morton and Richard Hurndall in 'Gilbert and Sullivan'". Radio Times, issue 1674, 11–17 December 1955, p. 12. In 1962, he conducted the South Australian Symphony Orchestra in the Australian première of Richard Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos as part of the Adelaide Festival, Photograph may only be viewed at the Library. with Adelaide-born Una Hale in the title role. In the 1961–1962 and 1962–1963 seasons he conducted several operas at the East Berlin State Opera and was invited to become music director there, which he declined.
In 1963, he made his debut at London's Covent Garden conducting Dmitri Shostakovich's Katerina Izmailova. He directed the Hamburg State Opera from 1965 to 1969; operas he conducted for the first time during his tenure included Arabella, The Rake's Progress, Boris Godunov, Zar und Zimmermann, Mathis der Maler, Ruslan and Lyudmila, and Der fliegende Holländer. He was music director of English National Opera from 1970 to 1977.Phelan 1987, pp. 151, 166, 198 In 1972, he made his Metropolitan Opera debut in New York conducting Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice.Sadie, Stanley; Goodwin, Noël. Charles Mackerras. In: The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Macmillan Reference Ltd, London and New York, 1997, Volume Three, p.134. Mackerras worked closely with Benjamin Britten for a time until 1958, when, during rehearsals for the first performance of Britten's opera Noye's Fludde, he made comments about Britten liking the company of prepubescent boys, and Britten subsequently stopped speaking to him.
He conducted the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Birgit Nilsson in the opening concert of the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House, in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II, in 1973.
Later career Mackerras had conducted a few Gilbert and Sullivan productions for English National Opera, but his first experience as a guest conductor of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was for The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado during the 1975 D'Oyly Carte company centenary season at the Savoy. He conducted the ENO production of Patience at the Proms in 1976, the first full-length Gilbert and Sullivan opera given in its entirety at the Proms. In 1980 he joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Trust and later its board of trustees. In the early 1980s, he conducted two New Year's Eve broadcasts of Savoy operas for the BBC, and his recordings of eight of the operas were broadcast in 1989 by BBC Radio 2 as part of a complete Gilbert and Sullivan series. He also conducted a centennial performance of Sullivan's The Golden Legend in Leeds and the first staging of a complete Gilbert and Sullivan opera at the Royal Opera House, The Yeomen of the Guard, with Welsh National Opera in 1995.Simeone, Nigel. "Sir Charles Mackerras (1925–2010): A Lifetime of Gilbert and Sullivan", Gilbert and Sullivan News, The Gilbert and Sullivan Society (London), Vol. V, No. 10, Spring 2016, pp. 4–7
In 1980 Mackerras became the first non-Briton to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the Last Night of the Proms. In 1982 he was the first Australian national to be appointed chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 1985. he directed the Welsh National Opera from 1987 to 1992, where his Janáček productions won particular praise. For Lucia di Lammermoor in 1989, he conducted a version which used the autograph with the pit players disposed behind as well as in front, in the manner of the early 19th century. One of the highlights of the 1991 season was the reopening of the Estates Theatre in Prague, scene of the original premiere of Mozart's Don Giovanni, in which Mackerras conducted a new production of that opera to mark the bicentenary of Mozart's death. As Conductor Emeritus of Welsh National Opera, his successes included Tristan und Isolde, The Yeomen of the Guard, and La clemenza di Tito (all of whose productions were brought to London). He was the principal guest conductor of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (SCO) from 1992 to 1995 and held the title of Conductor Laureate with the SCO. He was principal guest conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra from 1993 to 1996. During the same period, he was also principal guest conductor of the San Francisco Opera. From 1998 to 2001 he was the music director of the Orchestra of St. Luke's. From 1987, he regularly conducted the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and was appointed emeritus Conductor in 2007.