22 September, 2015

Music in the genes - Betty Lind

When Disney’s Beauty and the Beast opened in Newcastle in 2006, three generations of the Lind family were involved in its production. Carolyn, daughter of Betty Lind and her late husband Frank, directed. Another daughter Kathryn played Madame de la Grande Bouche. Three of Carolyn and Kathryn’s children played ‘enchanted objects.’

Betty Lind taught hundreds of Novocastrians singing, drama and piano; performed in opera, musicals and drama; designed and sewed countless theatre costumes; and was Secretary of the Newcastle Dramatic Art Club (NDAC) for 35 years. She would not formally retire until 2008, at the age of 78. One of the things that gives her great pleasure in her retirement is continuing to hear from countless numbers of people of the pleasure and enjoyment they received from her singing and performances.

With a father like Colin Chapman, who founded NDAC in 1938, it is no wonder music and theatre are in Betty Lind’s genes. [1]

‘I grew up with music and theatre as the mainstay of my life,’ Betty says.

Even so, she is the only one of Chapman’s five children to follow this path.

Betty Lind, née Chapman, came to live in Hamilton as a teenager when her parents moved to Gordon Avenue in 1944. Her father established not just one, but two Roxy Theatres in Hamilton.

Leaving school, Home Science High, at the age of 15, Betty joined her father in his Academy of Music, teaching piano. She’d been studying piano since she was 6 years old, first in Newcastle, with Ethie Sadler and then Ellie Dodsley, and later at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music with Alexander Sverjensky and Frank Hutchens.


Betty Lind (left) with Raymond McDonald  and Ellie Dodsley
Photograph from the personal collection of Betty Lind


But who better than her father to teach Betty singing?

Still, it was not until she was 29 that Betty made her singing debut, in the lead role in ‘Tosca.’ It was 1959. Betty says that at 14 she had been told she had ‘a big voice but a rough passage out.’ As a result she didn’t sing in public until she was 28 years of age.

When Betty sang Tosca opposite Ray McDonald, at the time one of Australia’s leading tenors, she showed her father what she was truly capable of. Other roles quickly followed – Bloody Mary in ‘South Pacific,’ and Josepha in ‘White Horse Inn,’ where she played opposite the man destined to become her husband, Frank Lind. They married in 1962, setting up home in Hamilton North.


Betty Lind as Bloody Mary in ‘South Pacific’ c.1060
Photograph from the personal collection of Betty Lind


Frank and Betty’s passion for music, performance and theatre was intensely shared.  Frank became NDAC President after Colin Chapman’s death, keeping his legacy alive. That passion has been passed on to their daughters, and four grandchildren.

I ask Betty what were the highlights of her career.

‘I was part of an international cast, and one of just four Australians, chosen to appear at ‘Night of Stars’ on the last night of the season of ‘My Fair Lady’ at Her Majesty’s Theatre in Sydney. It was a fundraiser for cancer – starting at midnight and going until 4 am.’

Betty felt terrified to be performing in such illustrious company. She explains:

‘To perform on the stage at Her Majesty’s was an exhilarating experience. I sang ‘Happy Talk’ from South Pacific, with David Williams (who had been one of Dad’s students in the 1940s) and Chin Yu as Cable and Liat. Both were international stars with me. The experience was something I will always remember’.

Betty also performed with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Town Hall under the baton of Georg Tintner. In her hometown, Newcastle, and in the two Roxy Theatres of Hamilton, Betty has performed Grand Opera, musical theatre, dramatic presentations, revues and farce.

Betty associates the birth of her daughters with shows she performed in.

‘Kathryn was born 13 weeks before we opened “Call Me Madam,”’ she tells me. ‘Frank and I both had leading roles, (Cosmo and Madam). Carolyn was born two months after we finished “Flower Drum Song”, in which once again, Frank and I had leading roles. My costumes had to be made very full, and I had to remember not to put my hands on my hips.’

‘Both girls grew up in theatre,’ Betty continues. ‘It is a way of life for the family. They both have excellent voices which have been passed on to their children.’

Carolyn, whose first on-stage performance was at the age of two, has established herself as a Director of considerable repute. Kathryn followed the path of her grandmother, Aileen Chapman, who was NDAC wardrobe mistress for 45 years. In the 2000s, Kathryn costumed all the shows presented at the Newcastle Civic Theatre. These days, Carolyn lives in Brisbane with her trumpet-playing husband and children; Kathryn in England, with her husband and children.

Kathryn’s daughters love music and musicals; Carolyn’s son and daughter love theatre, the performing arts and sport. Whatever career paths they choose – astronomy, biology, writing, music, visual arts and sports are on the cards - the legacy left to them by parents, grandparents and great grandparents will nourish every day of their lives.


Betty Lind (right) in one of her favorite roles as Mother Superior in 
a publicity shot for ‘The Sound of Music’ c.1970
Left is Colin Chapman, centre is Betty’s daughter Kathryn
Photograph from the personal collection of Betty Lind



Acknowledgement

Thank you to Betty Lind for providing photographs and information for this story.

Related post
The Roxy Theatre



A digital recording of an interview with Betty Lind by Rosalind Evans as part of a project done by Open Foundation students at The University of Newcastle in the late 1980s is available online at







[1] A digital recording of an interview with Betty Lind by Rosalind Evans as part of a project done by Open Foundation students at The University of Newcastle in the late 1980s is available online at

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