Robert Gard - "Here I Stand" THE RAKE'S PROGRESS (Stravinsky) 1983

Robert Gard was born in Cornwall, England, March 7th, 1927, and studied at the Guildhall School of Music. He came to Australia in 1960 with a tour of The Merry Widow and returned to star in a production of Lock Up Your Daughters in Melbourne in 1961. This was followed by roles in Kismet, Once Upon a Mattress and Showboat before he was invited to join Opera Australia in 1963. Bob was immediately welcomed into the Australian operatic community. With Opera Australia, he appeared in Die Fledermaus, The Barber of Seville, Don Pasquale, Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, Falstaff, Boris Godunov, The School for Fathers, The Rake’s Progress, The Rape of Lucretia, Pagliacci, The Marriage of Figaro, Opera Through the Time Machine, The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, Jenufa, Ariadne on Naxos, Fra Diavolo, Die Walküre, Albert Herring, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, Rheingold, La fanciulla del West, Lucrezia Borgia, The Queen of Spades, Death in Venice, Manon Lescaut, Salome, Katya Kabanova, Peter Grimes, Turn of the Screw, Lake Lost, Elektra, Tristan und Isolde, Voss, Turandot, The Eighth Wonder, The Makropoulos Secret, Countess Maritza, HMS Pinafore, Patience, Iolanthe, Yeoman of the Guard, The Pirates of Penzance, The Gondoliers, Fiddler on the Roof, The Gypsy Princess and Pericole. Other companies in Australia saw him in Much Ado About Nothing, La Belle Hélène, The Grand Adventure, Orpheus in the Underworld, Death in Venice, Regarding Faustus, The Emperor of Atlantis, Die Frau Ohne Schatten, Trial by Jury and Titanic the Musical. He appeared in the early ABC television opera broadcasts of The Devil Take Her, Manon, Louise and The Fall of the House of Usher. His appearance as Aschenbach in the feature film of Britten’s Death in Venice was a highlight in his illustrious career. He is captured here as Tom Rakewell in Stravinsky's THE RAKE'S PROGRESS in a production for State Opera of South Australia in 1983. Rex Taylor Craig performs Truelove and the conductor is Denis Vaughan.