Rosina Raisbeck

Phyllis Rosina Raisbeck MBE (28 July 1916 – 23 December 2006) was an Australian opera and concert mezzo-soprano singer. Her fine voice was basically a dramatic mezzo, with a warm middle register supporting strong top notes.

Rosina Raisbeck was born Ballarat, Victoria on 28 July 1916 but grew up in Maitland and Newcastle, New South Wales. In 1942 she began vocal studies at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music in Sydney, where she worked for five years. During that period she sang with the opera school in Jacques Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann and in 1944 she took part in the first performance of The Pearl Tree by Edgar Bainton, the English composer who was director of the conservatorium. The Pearl Tree, though written many years before, was given a glowing review by Neville Cardus in the Sydney Morning Herald.

She ended her studies in 1946 by winning the Australian Broadcasting Commission's Concerto and Vocal Competition, and the Sun Aria Competition.

After a concert tour of New Zealand, Raisbeck sailed for London with her husband James Laurie, whom she had married in 1943. A letter of recommendation from Eugene Goossens, newly appointed Director of the Conservatory, obtained her an audition at the recently formed Covent Garden Opera Company (now the Royal Opera) and she made her début as Maddalena in Verdi's Rigoletto, later singing such roles as Flora in La traviata, Second Lady in Mozart's The Magic Flute, Mercedes in Bizet's Carmen, Wellgunde in Wagner's Das Rheingold and Rossweisse in Die Walküre.

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