Eugene Aynsley Goossens
He was born in Camden Town, London, the son of the Belgian conductor and violinist Eugène Goossens (fils, 1867–1958) and Annie Cook, a Carl Rosa Opera Company singer.
[3] He was a first violin in Henry Wood's Queen's Hall Orchestra from 1911 to 1915 and as second violinist a founding member of the Philharmonic Quartet before coming to attention as Thomas Beecham's assistant conductor with a performance of Stanford's opera The Critic (1916).
In 1921 he decided to make conducting his career and founded his own orchestra; with this ensemble he made a number of gramophone records for Edison-Bell's Velvet Face label.
They conducted an intense affair, exchanging a number of passionate letters; although Goossens asked Norton to destroy all of them, she kept a bundle hidden behind a sofa.
When Goossens returned to Australia on 9 March 1956, he was detained at Sydney Airport, following a tip-off by informants in London; his bags were searched by Customs officials, who found a large amount of what was then considered pornographic material, which included photographs, prints, books, a spool of film, some rubber masks, and sticks of incense.
Although he was not immediately arrested or charged, Goossens naively agreed to attend a police interview a few days later, where he was confronted with photographs of Norton's "ceremonies" and his letters.
[1][6] The scandal was the basis of a novel, Pagan (1990), by Inez Baranay; it also inspired a play, The Devil is a Woman, by Louis Nowra and an opera, Eugene & Roie, by Drew Crawford.
The Belgian baritone Albert Goossens, who with his wife Alice Goossens-Viceroy, a soprano with the New South Wales State Orchestra, was on the teaching staff of the Sydney Conservatorium, was not related.
[3] The latter was broadcast by the BBC on 11 April 1959 with Monica Sinclair, Marie Collier, Helen Watts, Marion Lowe, Bruce Boyce, Robert Thomas and Andrei McPherson.
After his return to England, Goossens was approached by Beecham to arrange a modern symphony orchestra version of Handel's Messiah to mark the bicentenary of the composer's death in 1959.
Goossens augmented the original orchestration with parts for four horns, three trombones, tuba, piccolo, contrabassoon, two harps, triangle, cymbals, and bass drum.
Goossens is credited for much of the lobbying to the NSW Government to build a music performance venue, a process that led to the construction of the Sydney Opera House.
Having agreed to go ahead with the project, the New South Wales Premier Joseph Cahill had wanted it to be on or near Wynyard Railway Station in the north-west of the CBD, but Goossens insisted that it be built at Bennelong Point overlooking Sydney Harbour.
