This biography has been re-published in full with permission. Licensed by Manatū Taonga Ministry for Culture and Heritage for re-use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 New Zealand Licence.
Born: 8 March 1942, New Zealand
Died: NA
Country most active: International
Also known as: NA
Dunedin-born mezzo-soprano Patricia Payne had a brilliant career from the early 1970s, singing on many of the world’s great stages – Barcelona, Covent Garden, Bayreuth (including Patrice Chéreau’s Ring cycle alongside Donald McIntyre), San Francisco, Geneva, and La Scala in Milan. In April 1976 she was a huge success playing as the old nurse Filpyevna in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, in a Covent Garden production that included Kiri Te Kanawa as Tatyana and Heather Begg as Madam Larina. Wherever she sang Payne gained critical acclaim and the admiration of her colleagues, including conductors of the calibre of Pierre Boulez and Colin Davis.