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The Australian conductor Richard Alan Bonynge has been a leader in the revival of interest in the bel canto opera of the first half of the nineteenth century. When he studied piano in the New South Wales Conservatorium in Australia, his teacher was Lindley Evans, once accompanist to the great Australian soprano Nellie Melba, whose repertoire included bel canto parts. When Bonynge went to England he studied with Herbert Freyer and became interested in vocal technique. When the Royal College of Music turned him down for its conducting course, he resigned his scholarship and became a private vocal coach. Another young Australian, soprano Joan Sutherland, hired him. Bonynge realized that her high, strong voice was suited for the "bel canto" works (flowing, virtuosic "beautiful singing") of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti, an operatic repertoire until recently considered outdated. Sutherland and Bonynge were married in 1954. Throughout the 1950s, as Sutherland began to gain an audience, h...