Reginald Goodall
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Sir Reginald Goodall was born in Lincoln, England on 13 July 1901 and died on 5 May 1990). He was an English conductor most noted for his performances of the operas of Benjamin Britten and Richard Wagner. Known as "Reggie", Goodall studied at the Royal College of Music and elsewhere in Europe. In 1929, he became the organist and choirmaster at St. Alban's, Holborn. In the 1930s, he was a member of Oswald Mosley's short-lived British Union of Fascists, and gave out leaflets and sat in on meetings.
He joined the Sadler's Wells company, forerunner of English National Opera, in 1944. An early triumph was his conducting of the première of Britten's Peter Grimes in 1945. He conducted this again later at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, where he had first conducted in 1947. He was an assistant conductor to the music director of the Royal Opera House, Karl Rankl, in the late 1940s. Goodall also conducted at Glyndebourne, including another Britten première, this time of the Rape of Lucretia, which was also his first recording, with EMI.
He spent much of his career conducting orchestras at the Royal Opera House and English National Opera. A modest man, Goodall achieved his own prominence in later life once he was able to come out from under the shadow of some of the great (German and Austrian) conductors of his era, for whom he understudied, conducted rehearsals and provided vocal coaching. But it was not Klemperer, Karajan or Furtwängler with whom he was then compared. Hungarian Georg Solti, 11 years his junior, was Music Director of Covent Garden (1961-71) coincidentally with Goodall at ENO when both were conducting and recording Ring Cycles. The difference in tempo (and temperament) was most notable, but Goodall was most appreciated for his attention to detail (and Wagner's annotations) and for his extensive reheasals. Solti's recordings (from Bayreuth and Covent Garden) had the advantage of attracting the more remarkable soloists (singing in German) and are probably now better appreciated, not least for their more spirited tempo that is now even more in fashion.
In the late 1960's and early 1970's, Goodall conducted several celebrated Wagner productions at Sadler's Wells Opera (later the English National Opera) that reversed the decline in his prestige and established him as one of the leading Wagner conductors of his time. He conducted The Mastersingers (Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg) in 1968, and the full Ring Cycle from 1970-1973, both productions sung in English, and directed in his hall-mark slow, deliberative style. Goodall was much loved by audiences, musicians and singers with whom he worked over long periods, building up a mutual understanding and rapport which showed in the quality of his recordings, especially with British singers whose careers he fostered. His very lack of egotism and charisma was one of his greatest attractions. Many reviewers consider his Ring to be vocally one of the most beautiful even if his Götterdämmerung lasted an hour longer than that of Pierre Boulez.
His last public performance was in 1987 at the Royal Albert Hall, London where he led the English National Opera Company in a performance of Act 3 of Richard Wagner's Parsifal. The cast was Gwynne Howell (Gurnemanz), Warren Ellsworth (Parsifal), Neil Howlett (Amfortas) and Shelagh Squires (Kundry).
John Lucas published an authorized biography of Goodall, Reggie, in 1993.
