Stuart Challender AO 1947-1991

Challender was, in fact one of the world’s first leading arts figures to state publicly, while he could still work, that he had AIDS – and in doing so he made it immeasurably easier for other sufferers who were reluctant to admit, even to their families, that they had the disease.

In June, Stuart Challender conducted his last concert. Appropriately it was in Hobart, with the Tasmanian Symphony.

The Australian Opera had mounted a new production of Richard Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier for him. He had never conducted it before and he prepared the long, punishing score with all his usual thoroughness. He was determined to conduct it and he never missed a rehearsal.

On the first night in the Sydney Opera House on 2 September he led a ravishing, glowing performance that was rewarded with an instant standing ovation ‘that had the force of a tempest’. He struggled through three more performances, and then travelled to Melbourne to see his dear friend Marilyn Zschau in the Victoria State Opera’s Elektra, conducted by Richard Divall. ‘Although his body was emaciated, his spirit was indomitable,’ recalled Divall. ‘His dignity was immense and his eyes shone with fire. Twice he told me that it would be the last time that we would meet. He would never have wanted to cause pain, but I admit now that I retired to my own dressing room and wept.’

Challender’s last few months were chronicled in The Big Finish, a moving, insightful ABC TV Four Corners program created by his friend David Marr. As Challender had wished, it was dedicated to his grandmother, who had been the inspiration for his musical journey. In the program she told Marr that she would gladly have given her life if somehow it could have saved her grandson’s.

Stuart David Challender died in a Sydney AIDS hospice on 13 December 1991. He was 44.

Challender was made an Officer of the Order of Australia a few months before his death and, posthumously, the annual ‘Mo’ Awards named him Australian Performer of the Year.

At the Sydney Town Hall on 20 December Justice Michael Kirby led the speakers at a celebration of Challender’s life, and Peter Sculthorpe’s cello piece Stuart Challender in Memoriam was heard for the first time. There was a commemorative concert at the Opera House on 10 May 1992.

In his will, Challender provided for the establishment of the Stuart Challender Foundation, to aid the training and development of future Australian conductors. He bequeathed his extensive collection of scores to the Music Library at the University of Tasmania.

Frank Van Straten, 2007