Sir Eugene Goossens 1893-1962

It was the success of these performances, and the less than satisfactory conservatorium hall in which they were presented, that prompted Goossens to announce, as early as 1947, that Sydney needed ‘an opera house’. What he really wanted was a building that could not only stage opera, but also provide an adequate venue for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, which performed in the acoustically lamentable Sydney Town Hall. On 6 October 1948 Goossens controversially suggested that the opera house could replace the old tram sheds on Bennelong Point. In 1952, weary of Goossens’ persistence, Charles Moses reluctantly arranged a meeting with the new premier, J.J. Cahill. It took a lot of persuasion, but eventually Cahill agreed that an opera house would be desirable, but he was not convinced of the suitability of the prominent harbour site. He appointed Goossens to a four-man advisory committee. In the end, of course, the Bennelong site was accepted. In September 1955, a competition to design the building was announced.

At the Sydney Town Hall on 22 November 1954 Goossens conducted the Sydney Symphony, two choirs, an organ and soloists in the world premiere of his epic oratorio The Apocalypse. His services to music were recognised with a knighthood on 9 June 1955. A mere nine months later came another apocalypse. On 9 March 1956 he flew into Sydney after completing a round of international conducting engagements. A customs search revealed he was carrying about 1000 ‘indecent photographs, films and books’ – material apparently connected with his interest in Pantheism and his friendship with the notorious ‘witch of Kings Cross’, Rosaleen Norton.

The resulting conviction cost Goossens his career and his health. The Sydney Morning Herald editorialised: ‘The end of his career has been pitiful beyond measure.’ Goossens returned to Britain in May 1956, but concert bookings were sparse. Richard Bonynge found him ‘absolutely destroyed. It was tragic.’ Eugene Goossens died on 13 June 1962.

The 1956 scandal was the basis of Inez Baranay’s novel Pagan and Geoffrey Burton’s 2004 documentary The Fall of the House; it also inspired Louis Nowra’s play The Devil is a Woman and the opera Eugene and Roie by Drew Crawford.

Thankfully, Australians have ceased to snigger at the mention of Goossens’ name, and the positive aspects of the decade he spent here are being acknowledged. And as it did with the debacle over the Opera House’s architect, Jørn Utzon, the public seems to want to atone for past hurts. Soon after the Opera House opened in 1973 a striking portrait of Goossens by Archibald Prize winner Henry Hanke was hung in the library. In 1982 Sydney Symphony Orchestra subscribers funded a bust of Goossens by sculptor Peter Latona. It was placed in the foyer of the Opera House Concert Hall and unveiled, appropriately, following the second Sydney performance of Goossens’ The Apocalypse. In 1991 the ABC named the main concert venue in its new Ultimo Centre after Goossens, in recognition of his prodigious contribution to music in Australia.

The last word must go to Noel Coward, who, in nine impeccably chosen words, summed it all up:

‘My heart just loosens
When I listen to Goossens.’

Frank Van Straten, 2007