“Kevin Roper, who used to work for my husband at the ABC, was a recording producer in Adelaide. When I became really desperate, he said ‘I think I know where there’s a pile of recordings on a shelf in a locked room at the old ABC building, in which they still retain one floor’. He found them,” Richardson recalls.

She does not know how much of her material has been lost, but one concern is that people making decisions about what to digitise may not understand the historical importance of many recordings.

‘In the past finding this material has been difficult, time-consuming and costly.’

She would like the originals for family and to put on YouTube but, in particular, she hopes the ABC will release a box set featuring Australia’s classical music legacy over the 90-year history of the national broadcaster which, until the 1990s, ran all the state orchestras. “We had wonderful visiting artists over the years,” she said.

In 2019, the Orchestra de la Suisse Romande in Geneva released a box set of performances from 1919 to 2019, including a concert with Richardson. “I don’t know if the ABC has thought of that. People overseas have no idea what we do in Australia and – seeing we have this library – we should make something of it.”

An ABC spokesman said the ABC had identified more than 140 items by Richardson in the archive, including many concert recordings, most of which had been digitised.

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“In the past finding this material has been difficult, time-consuming and costly. The digitisation of the ABC Archive makes this process much easier,” he said.

“Australian soprano Marilyn Richardson is an important figure in our cultural story and music lovers should be able to enjoy her unique talents for generations to come. The ABC looks forward to sharing a selection of this material with Marilyn and thanks her for the contributions she has made to the performing arts.”

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