Sir Nicholas Winton at the RCM

Monday 24 November 2014

We were honoured to welcome the British humanitarian Sir Nicholas Winton to the Royal College of Music on Friday 21 November.

Nicholas Winton is known for organising the rescue of 669 Czech children from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia during the 9 months before war broke out in 1939. The story became known to the public in 1988 when it featured on That’s Life, a BBC TV programme hosted by Esther Rantzen. In 2003 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for Services to Humanity for this work.

Sir Nicholas, who recently celebrated his 105th birthday, is an opera lover, and so we were delighted that he could attend the dress rehearsal of the RCM International Opera School’s autumn production of Mozart’s The Magic Flute. He also attended a reception after the performance and met some of the opera’s star performers (pictured left to right Amy Williamson, Rose Setten and Natasha Day).

The RCM’s four sold-out performances of The Magic Flute take place on 24, 26, 28 and 29 November. Find out more about the production on our events pages.