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.
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[edit] Life and career
Fancourt was born Darrell Louis Fancourt Leverson in Kensington, London.[1]
Fancourt was educated at Bedford School and studied singing at the Royal Academy of Music with Alberto Randegger and Sir Henry Wood, and later in Germany with Lilli Lehmann .[2] He was gaining notices on the concert stage in London, the British provinces, and the European continent when World War I began. He sang in a single performance of Prince Igor at Covent Garden as Prince Galitsky (1919), his only appearance in a grand opera, and his only acting experience up to that point.
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 eventually sang over 3,000 times),[3] 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 roles for the D'Oyly Carte organisation until 1953. Over the years, he performed with the company on at least five American visits.[4] 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.
Fancourt was married to Eleanor "Snookie" Evans, a D'Oyly Carte soprano and later Stage Director/Director of Productions for the company. According to fellow D'Oyly Carte performer Derek Oldham, "...she was so beautiful, was Snookie! We all fell for her, and we gave Darrell a busy time keeping us 'off'."[5]
[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.
[edit] References
- ^ Sources differ as to Fancourt's birth name. According to this article concerning the Mikado's laugh, Frederick Lloyd of the D'Oyly Carte company management quotes Fancourt giving his birth name as David Levinson. These sources, IMDB site and Memories of the D'Oyly Carte site both give his birthname as Darrell David Leverson.
- ^ Ayer, p.85
- ^ Ayer, p.85
- ^ Fancourt's credits on the IBDB database
- ^ "Derek Oldham Remembers" at the Memories of the D'Oyly Carte website
- Ayre, Leslie (1972). The Gilbert & Sullivan Companion. London: W.H. Allen & Co Ltd. Introduction by Martyn Green.
[edit] External links
- Darrell Fancourt at Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte
- Profile of Fancourt
- Article about Fancourt's famous Mikado laugh
