Darrell Fancourt

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Darrell Fancourt (March 8, 1886 – August 29, 1953) was an English bass-baritone, known for his performances of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

1 Life and career
2 Recordings
3 Reference
4 External links

[edit] Life and career

Darrell Fancourt was born Darrell Louis Fancourt Leverson in Kensington, London. He was educated at Bedford School and studied singing at the Royal Academy of Music and later in Germany. He was gaining notices on the concert stage in London, the British provinces, and the European continent when World War I broke out. He sang in a single performance of Prince Igor at Covent Garden as Prince Galitsky (1919), his only appearance in a grand opera.

Fancourt joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1920 as understudy to Frederick Hobbs. Fancourt soon filled in for Hobbs on occasion as the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, the Earl of Mountararat in Iolanthe, Arac in Princess Ida, the Mikado of Japan in The Mikado (a role that he sang over 3,000 times), and Sergeant Meryll in The Yeomen of the Guard. Within a few months, Fancourt took all these roles as his own, as well as Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore, Colonel Calverley in Patience, and Sir Roderick Murgatroyd in Ruddigore. In 1921, when Cox and Box and The Sorcerer were revived, Fancourt added the roles of Sergeant Bouncer and Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre. He also appeared as the Usher in Trial by Jury in 1926.

Fancourt continued playing most of these these roles for the D'Oyly Carte company until 1953. By the early 1950s, however, Fancourt's health began to fail, and in 1950 he gave up the role of Mountararat. He received the O.B.E. in June 1953 in the Coronation Honours, and he died in August, just 33 days after giving his last performance. He was married to Eleanor Evans, a D'Oyly Carte chorister and later Stage Director/Director of Productions for the company.

[edit] Recordings

Darrell Fancourt participated in nineteen D'Oyly Carte recordings between 1923 and 1950: Mountararat (1922, shared with Peter Dawson, and 1930), Dick Deadeye (1922, shared with Frederick Hobbs, 1930, and 1949), Sir Roderic (1924, 1931, and 1950), Arac (1925 and 1932), Colonel Calverley (1930 and 1952), Sir Marmaduke in an abridged Sorcerer (1933), the Mikado (1926, 1936 and 1950), the Pirate King (1931 abridged set and 1950), and Sergeant Meryll (1950). He also sang the title role in a 1926 BBC radio broadcast of The Mikado, and appeared in a four-minute silent promotional film made of the D'Oyly Carte Mikado in 1926.

A photograph of Fancourt and D'Oyly Carte colleagues with the huge recording horn used in the acoustic recording process can be seen here.