The Australian soprano and wife of Rafael Kubelík has passed away at the age of 91.

The popular Australian soprano, who gave up a promising career after marrying leading Czech conductor Raphael Kubelík, has died in Prague at the age of 91. Despite her early retirement at the age of 39, Morison leaves behind a discography that includes recording the soprano leads in all of Sir Malcolm Sargent’s Gilbert and Sullivan series for HMV.

Born in Ballarat, Victoria in 1924, Elsie Morison studied in Melbourne at the Conservatory of Music for two years under the tutelage of Clive Carey. Her musical career took off when she was given the opportunity to be the soprano soloist in Handel’s Messiah with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic when she was just 20 years of age. Continuing her studies with Carey for two more years, she then transferred to the Royal College of Music in London.

Her English concert debut followed in 1948 at the Royal Albert Hall in Handel’s Acis and Galatea and she went on to appear in opera and oratorios throughout the 1950s. In 1953 she sang Anne Trulove in Edinburgh as part of the first British production of Stravinsky’s The Rake’s...