OPERA HOUSE WALK

Twenty walkers including 90-year-old Mr. Val Taylor all from Gulgong set off on a Waltzing Matilda Walk from the Sydney Opera House to the Gulgong Opera House, where Matilda first waltzed out.

Val Taylor

Source: Getty Images

Click here for the original Getty image

Pictured:

01 David Ballard

[Freddy Gudgeon between 1 and 2] 

02 Theresa Lane

03 Elizabeth Yip (nee Lewis)

04 Frank Halloran

05 Rocky Norris

06 Alf Brigden

07 Val Taylor

08 Fiona Goodman (nee Lewis)

10 Petrina McFarlane (nee Lewis)

11 Lisa Halloran

12 Lois Lewis (nee Jackson)

Val Taylor, Freddy Gudgeon and Margaret Meredith
Source: Jan Ridout 

2023 - From the Archives, 1973: A tale of two violins

Fifty years ago, two very different musicians played spontaneous concerts at the yet-to-be-completed Sydney Opera House. One was a Mudgee abattoir worker, the other one of the greatest violinists of the 20th century.
First published in The Sydney Morning Herald on April 7, 1973.

Mr Allan Walsh and Mr Yehudi Menuhin both played the violin at the Sydney Opera House yesterday.

Mr Walsh, 23, wore a bowler hat and tails and played Just a Bunch of Irish Shamrocks and Waltzing Matilda.

Mr Menuhin, 56, wore a navy cardigan and played the Praeludium from Bach’s E Major Solo Partita.

They did not meet.

Mr Walsh played on the steps outside. Mr Menuhin inside the Concert Hall.

Mr Walsh works in the abattoir at Mudgee and was taking part in the Waltzing Matilda Walk to Gulgong festivities.

As he fiddled, six fellow-Gulgongites began their 190-mile walk from the Sydney Open House to the Gulgong Opera House.

The people of Gulgong are restoring the century old Prince of Wales Opera House with the help of University of NSW students.

Distinguished Gulgong residents present included Henry Lawson’s daughter, Mrs Bertha Jago, and the 22-year-old Empire light middleweight champion, Charkey Ramon.

Mr Menuhin had with him his elegant wife Diana, the NSW Minister for Public Works, Mr Punch, and the general manager of the Opera House, Mr Barnes.

Opera House workers and reporters made up the small audience for the hastily arranged five-minute recital.

Earlier in the week, Mr Menuhin had expressed a wish to play at the Opera House but had been told that because of work still in progress this could not be arranged. Mr Punch intervened.

Even before he began to play, Mr Menuhin pronounced the Opera House “the most beautiful building in the whole world.”

After the Bach his enthusiasm knew no bounds.

The sound of the violin, he said, was quite wonderful, very alive, the reverberation was good. Lovely.

“Does it sound as good in the hall?” he asked.

“Yes,” called out Mrs Menuhin. “Very clear with a nice edge.”

Mr Menuhin said it was at least as good as his two favourite halls, the Berlin Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Music Centre. “I think it’s absolutely wonderful. The inside lives up to the outside. It’s like being inside another violin. It’s like playing inside the most beautiful violin ever constructed,” he said.

From someone called Yehudi Menuhin you felt there could be no greater praise.

The Prince of Wales Opera House is now owned by the Gulgong Amateur Musical and Dramatical Society and enjoys regular bookings. Noted past performers include Roger Woodward and James Morrison.

Source: Article by Lenore Nicklin, Sydney Morning Herald, April 6, 2023

One for the road ... Mr [Allan] Walsh (left) plays while fellow Gulgongites,
including 90-year-old Mr Val Taylor, begin their 190-mile trek.
CREDIT: TREVOR DALLEN