Here Comes Treble: Death Of A Tenor
Isabel Bradley mourns the death of a tenor with a golden voice.
The crystalline purity of Dion van der Walt’s voice will never soar through the opera houses of Europe, England and New York again.
Dion left South Africa in the early 1980’s, and did not return to perform. His was one of the finest voices to come from South Africa. He became known throughout Europe for his renderings of Mozart, Donizetti, Schubert and Schumann; he lived in Switzerland, from where he could travel easily to any European opera house.
The clarity of his high notes, the warmth of his lower register, made his voice immediately recognisable. Recordings made by Dion were broadcast often on Johannesburg’s classical music radio station, Classic Fm, and I invariably stopped what I was doing to listen with delight.
On an otherwise ordinary day during an ordinary summer in the small, wine-growing town of Paarl, near Cape Town in South Africa, the world-renowned tenor’s father shot Dion, then turned the gun and killed himself.
The world’s music-lovers will mourn the loss of Dion, his glorious voice and his musical greatness.
Buried at the dark heart of this loss, there is a greater tragedy – that of a father’s love for his son gone horribly wrong.
No-one can know what pain, grief, fear and agony of mind led to the moment when that trigger was pulled. There will be speculation, there will no doubt be official investigation…
The Dark Heart
Flaming voice,
Clear and bright –
Crystal in candlelight…
The dark heart waits,
Pulsing,
‘til Death,
Ice-blue and cold,
Snuffs out it’s child,
Snuffs out itself…
Until next week, and, I hope, a happier topic: watch out – here comes Treble!
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