and first studied theatre before discovering that he had a fine singing voice and going on to study at the National University of Music Bucharest from 1952 to 1956. His operatic debut was with the Romanian National Opera as Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro. He won numerous awards including first prize at the Mozarteum in Salzburg in 1956, and sang in Milan (Riccardo Forth in I puritani at La Scala, 1970) and at the Vienna Staatsoper (Amonasro, Escamillo, Rodrigo, Conte di Luna) as well as in Romania, where he was a renowned performer of Lieder. Two of his three daughters are opera singers, Irina (soprano) and Cristina (mezzosoprano) Iordăchescu. Patricia Kern Welsh mezzo-soprano, in Toronto, on October 19, aged 88. Born in Swansea on 4 July 1927, she studied with Gwynn Parry Jones at the Guildhall and then joined Opera for All, singing with the company from 1952 to 1955 and performing in schools and village halls throughout the UK. In 1959 she was invited by Colin Davis to join Sadler’s Wells and became a key member of the company for ten years, making her debut as Ježibaba in Rusalka and then creating a great impression in Rossini roles— Cenerentola, Rosina, Isolier (Count Ory) and Isabella (The Italian Girl in Algiers)—as well as Josephine in the 1966 premiere of Malcolm Williamson’s The Violins of St Jacques. She had an engaging and sympathetic stage presence and a voice of agility, clarity and flamboyant ease in Rossinian fioritura. With the Royal Opera she sang Zerlina (1967) and with Scottish Opera, encouraged by the music director Alexander Gibson, she took on Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus, Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Geneviève in Pelléas et Mélisande, Aurelia in the premiere of Iain Hamilton’s The Catiline Conspiracy (1974) and Kirstie in Robin Orr’s Hermiston (1975). She was Mrs Grose in Anthony Besch’s production of

Opera, December 2015

■  Patricia Kern as the Italian Girl at Sadler’s Wells

The Turn of the Screw in 1979, one of the last times that Peter Pears was seen on stage, singing the Prologue.

Internationally she sang in New York, Chicago, Toronto, Paris, Turin, Drottningholm and Hong Kong. In 1980 she joined the vocal department of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music, where her students included Russell Braun, Brett Polegato and Gidon Saks. Cornel Stavru Romanian tenor, in Bucharest, on September 17, aged 86. Born in Constanța on 31 August 1929, he made his debut with the Bucharest National Opera as Manrico in Il trovatore in 1958 and went on to be the company’s leading tenor, singing numerous roles over the years including Canio, Otello, Cavaradossi, Calaf, Don Carlos, Don José, Des Grieux, Florestan, Siegmund, Siegfried and Tannhäuser. He made recordings of Il trovatore, Pagliacci, Cavalleria rusticana and Nicolae Bretan’s Horia.

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