Obituary: Professor Vivienne Mylne

MAY I supplement the excellent and vivid obituary by Robert Gibson of Professor Vivienne Mylne (6 July)? writes Ian Martin.

During her time in the French Department at University College London (1951-55) it was Vivienne who first had the idea of starting up student opera at the college. As a student in early post-war Oxford she had sung in the University Opera Club's British premiere production of Mozart's Idomeneo: and when she came to UCL as an Assistant Lecturer in French it was she who inspired and persuaded Anthony Addison (then the college's Musical Director) to found a tradition of student opera at the college which has now lasted and flourished for over 40 years.

Vivienne herself sang a leading role in the college's first ever production, a double bill in 1951 of Purcell's Dido and Aeneas and Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne.

As Anthony Addison himself has recently written, 'Of course, Vivienne Mylne was the real mover and shaker in the UCL opera business.'