Richard Walker (singer)
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Richard Walker, (November 18, 1897 – August 26, 1989) was an English opera singer and actor, best known for his performances in the baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Between 1932 and 1939 Walker was married to D'Oyly Carte chorister Ena Martin. He married D'Oyly Carte soprano Helen Roberts in 1944, who survived him and lives in Australia.
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[edit] Life and career
Richard Walker was born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. He studied singing at the Midland Conservatoire of Music and earned a second degree (Licentiate) at the London College of Music. He began his career by touring for two years in concerts and revues.
[edit] D'Oyly Carte years
Walker joined a D'Oyly Carte touring company chorus in 1924. Soon he was filling in for baritone roles such as Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore and Sir Richard Cholmondeley in The Yeomen of the Guard. He also played Giorgio and then Antonio in The Gondoliers. He transferred to D'Oyly Carte's principal company in 1927, playing Antonio and Guron in Princess Ida.
During the 1930s, at various times, Walker played a variety of parts, usually as an understudy or occasional substitute, including King Hildebrand in Princess Ida, Usher (and later Counsel) in Trial by Jury, Boatswain in Pinafore, Samuel (and later the Pirate King) in the Pirates of Penzance, Sergeant Bouncer (and later Cox) in Cox and Box, Earl Mountararat (and later Private Willis) in Iolanthe, Major Murgatroyd (and sometimes Colonel Calverley) in Patience, Sir Roderic Murgatroyd in Ruddigore, the title role (and sometimes Pooh-Bah or Go-To) in The Mikado, Wilfred Shadbolt (and later Second Yeomen) in Yeomen, Don Alhambra in The Gondoliers, and the Notary in The Sorcerer.
In 1942, Walker succeeded Sydney Granville as principal "heavy" baritone, playing the Sergeant of Police in Pirates, Shadbolt, Don Alhambra, and Pooh-Bah throughout the 1940s. He added to these the Usher, Private Willis, and Boatswain. He filled in for Darrell Fancourt from time to time as Mountarartat, Colonel Calverley, and the Mikado, and he also occasionally played Grosvenor in Patience. However, beginning in 1947, both Walker and Roberts began losing roles to new talent hired by the company.
On July 31, 1948, Walker and Roberts left the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Walker was doing concert work and had returned from a production of The Gondoliers in Limerick, Ireland, in 1949, when D'Oyly Carte asked him to step in as an emergency replacement, initially filling in as Grosvenor in Patience and then Bouncer, Counsel, Boatswain, Pish-Tush, the Lieutenant, and Giuseppe in The Gondoliers for the remainder of the season.
Walker's total of thirty-five Savoy Opera roles while a member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is the company's all time record.
[edit] Australia and touring
After that, Walker and Roberts were engaged by the J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company, and toured Australia and New Zealand throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. When the Williamsons played Gilbert and Sullivan, as they did for extended tours every five or six years, Walker sang his familiar roles, as well as Dick Deadeye in Pinafore and Sergeant Meryll in Yeomen, and he directed the operas. Walker and Roberts also performed in musical comedies in Australia under other management, including touring for over four years as Alfred P. Doolittle in the original Australian production of My Fair Lady. Walker later appeared in the Williamson production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In 1967, he was with the Elizabethan Theatre Company as Froch in Die Fledermaus.
Walker also presented Gilbert and Sullivan with Roberts in two-person entertainments throughout the United States and Canada. President Eisenhower asked them to give their concert programme at his pre-inauguration party at the White House following his re-election in 1956, but they were unable to attend.
[edit] Recordings
His recordings with D'Oyly Carte included Antonio in The Gondoliers (1927) and Boatswain in H.M.S. Pinafore (1949).
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Ayre, Leslie (1972). The Gilbert & Sullivan Companion. London: W.H. Allen & Co Ltd. Introduction by Martyn Green.
- Memoirs: A Man of Many Parts, published in the The Palace Peeper, the journal of the Gilbert an Sullivan Society of New York in serial form beginning in December 1980.
