Jon Weaving Tribute Onlinetributes.com.au

WEAVING Jon
Our Wonderful Husband
and Father, Jon Weaving
passed away on
October 19, in Sweden.

Our hearts are broken but you will be with us in our souls forever.
Monique and Jack.

Jon commenced singing in public in Australia at the age of nine. He loved music from an early age as well as a love of the spoken word. An English teacher at Camberwell High School would roll words off his tongue with a relish and precision which made a huge impression on the boy. Later he would discover that singing was in fact sustained speech and that enunciation is a vital element of singing. In his teens, he had a job in the record department at 3UZ, a Melbourne commercial radio station. In those days the mix of music included plenty of classical pieces. With his rich speaking voice and a good dose of ambition, he was on air in six months as an announcer, the youngest in Melbourne. His record boy, who used to get him a pie for lunch, was Graham Kennedy. For 3 months he was co-announcer on the morning programme with Cliff Nichols, known as Nicky, a very funny man. They got up to mischief - sang duets from Il Trovatore, invaded the cooking programme on toy scooters and insulted all the major advertisers, who, after the initial shock, just loved it. They challenged the stuffy radio traditions. His time at 3UZ was followed by work as an ABC announcer.

During this time, Jon had singing lessons with Jessye Schmidt and Browning Mummery, competed in the 1950 Mobil Quest (won by Joan Sutherland) then left for Europe where he continued his vocal studies with Dino Borgioli in 1954. He travelled there with his first wife, Margaret Nisbett, winner of the 1951 Mobil Quest, and their son, Jon, was born in England in 1955. At Clive Carey's singing studio in London the long and happy friendship with Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge began. Later, this was to result in a complete vocal change from bass-baritone to tenor with the daily assistance of Richard Bonynge. Before this change occurred, he studied repertoire with Joan Cross and Hermann Simberg and worked extensively with Jani Strasser at Glyndebourne where he was offerred two solo contracts. He was also lucky enough to be employed by Sir Thomas Beecham as a rehearsal singer for his recordings and had the opportunity to be the stand-in singer at Abbey Road for Gotlob Frick as Osmin in the Beecham recording of The Abduction From The Seraglio, in which Jon finally sang the First janissary. He sang in five other Beecham recordings and in the two years with Sir Thomas, was able to absorb much which not only helped in his later career but for dinner party anecdotes.

After two years study with Richard Bonynge, Jon was engaged as a principal tenor with Sadlers Wells Opera and his debut role was in London's West End as Danilo in The Merry Widow opposite June Bronhill. This was the first of many hundreds of performances of this role and the beginning of a long association with the Coliseum Theatre. His many leading roles with Sadlers Wells included Alfredo in La Traviata, Lensky in Eugene Onegin, Sali in Delius' Village Romeo and Juliet (opposite Elsie Morrison) and more operetta roles such as Raoul de Gardefeu in La Vie Parisienne and Pluto in Orpheus in the Underworld. These were recorded by HMV at Abbey Road. He made BBC broadcasts, the first of which was Eisenstein in Die Fledermaus direct from the stage of Sadlers Wells. He sang again with June Bronhill, playing Sir Walter Raleigh in Merrie England under Charles Mackerras.

In 1962, he began a tour of Australia and New Zealand for Sadlers Wells, now the English National Opera. During this time, which included many performances of Danilo (Merry Widow) and Pluto (Orpheus in the Underworld), he had his own television series with Suzanne Steele for the ABC, The World of Operetta, which ran for three years. He also appeared with all the State Symphony Orchestras and toured New Zealand three times. On the last he directed the production and sang as Frederick in The Pirates of Penzance at Her Majesties, Auckland opposite his television co-star, Suzanne Steele.

Returning to London in 1966, he was chosen after extensive Covent Garden auditions by Benjamin Britten, to recreat the role of MacHeath in The Beggar's Opera, a role which Britten had composed for Peter Pears. This Jon sang in London, Paris, Lyon and at the World Expo 1967 in Montreal.  That same year he joined the Kiel Opera in germany following extensive study in London with Audrey Langford and Andrew Field as well as long periods in Paris with Dominic Modesti.

His debut role in Kiel was Wagner's Lohengrin followed by Hermann in Tschaikowski's Queen of Spades (La Pique Dame). Then came Otello, Canio (I Pagliacci), Andrea Chenier, Florestan (Fidelio), Hoffman (Tales of Hoffman), MacDuff (Macbeth), Luigi (Il Tabarro), Sou Chong (Land of Smiles), Count of Luxembourg and four world premieres, which he said were best forgotton.

Guest performances throughout Europe quickly followed: Don Jose (Carmen), Gypsy Baron, Tassilo (Countess Maritza) in Augsburg then Erik (Flying Dutchman) and another world premiere for the Munich Olympic Games - Rashomon based on the Japanese film. Whilst at Kiel and under the influence of well known conductors Klaus Tennstedtm Lothar Zagrosek and Hans Zender, Jon commenced a long series of Wagnerian "heroic roles", the first two being  Loge and Siegmund. He continually refused the opportunity to sing Siegfried and Tristan until persuaded by Lord Harewood and Charles Mackerras to undertake both Siegfrieds in London in English - the now famous Andrew Porter Ring. Before this, there were revivals of orpheus and the Duke in Night in Venice. Also a new production of Ariadne auf Naxos at the Coliseum in which Jon sang the murderously difficult role of Bacchus. Ther was also Weber's Huon in Oberon, learnt with Roger Vignoles at Covent garden in eight hours, just before the dress rehearsal!

Before the Siegfried performances came an invitation to debut at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich as Dimitri in Boris Godounov under Raphael Kubelik (giving Jon a chance to renew his aqauntance with Elsie Morrison, now Kubelik's wife). The love duets were opposite Brigitte Faessbender and the Boris was sung by either Marti Talvela, Nicolai Ghiarov, Theo Adam or Takao Okamura.

Naturally Jon continued to study between engagements and was most fortunate to be able to work with pedagogues such as Mario del Monaco, Max Lorenz, Marek Janowski and Erich rieder. His whole Wagnerian career however was based on his work with the German soprano, Anni Assian-Rohrling who had partnered singers such as Peter Anders in Tosca and Butterfly in Berlin and Hamburg. As a pre-war Berlin Isolde, she was able to impart enormous amounts of vocal knowledge and Wagnerian tradition.

The first Ring, singing both Siegfrieds in German, was in Wiesbaden with Wolfgang Wagner in the audience. This resulted in an offer to sing the Gotterdammerung Siegfried at Bayreuth in the original Patrice Chereau production for the Centenary. This however, was not possible to accept for several reasons, but a wonderful consolation prize was the offer of an engagement in Liepzig, Wagner's birthplace, to sing in a new Ring under Joachim Herz, with the Gewandhaus Orchestra playing in the pit. This engagement lasted for five consecutive seasons.

Jon has sung on Swiss, German, Austrian, Swedish, British and American television shows, starring in variety programmes such as the Phil Silvers (Seargeant Bilko) programme, The red Skelton Hour and the Shelley Berman Show for NBC in the United States. He has recorded for HMV, Phillips, Crest and ABC and appears on several opera videos. In his native Australia he has appeared with all the major orchestras and guested with the Victoria and Queensland Opera Companies. For the Australian Opera he sang the Gotterdammerung Siegfried under Sir Charles Mackerras and Siegmund in Die Walkure, both at the Sydney Opera House.

Jon's focus on Wagnerian roles took him to sing in Geneva, London, Cape Town, Naples, Genoa, Dortmund, Wiesbaden, Brauschweig, Hannover, Essen, Hong Kong, Munich, Leipzig etc. etc. .. and to places as far away as Namibia.

In Australia, he made a solo recital tour nationally with Geoffrey Parsons and filmed some television programmes for the ABC with his wife, well-known Swedish soprano, Monique Brynnel. They met during performances of Merry Widow in Germany when Monique was singing the title role and they married in London in 1969. Critics in Germany described them as the ideal operetta pair and together they starred in some ten classical operettas as well as some twenty performances of Show Boat in German as Magnolia and Ravenal. They have recorded for ABC an album entitled World of Operetta. Jon has also recorded Sosthene in Violins of St.Jacques by Malcolm Williamson and he created the title role of Quiros in Peter Sculthorpe's opera for ABC Television.

Jon and Monique returned to Victoria in 1978 with their son, Jack, set up a Swedish clog business, ran a restaurant in Mornington and taught voice privately. Jon was a member of the faculty of Music at the University of Melbourne, taught at the Victorian College of the Arts, specialised in Masterclasses, was on the Green Room Awards Selection Panel and Guest Adjudicator at vocal competitions. The Academy of Singing continues in Kew, being run by longtime student and tenor, Adam Wood. Monique still has an involvement in the Academy from Sweden.