Darrell Louis Fancourt Leverson (8 March 1886 – 29 August 1953), known as Darrell Fancourt, was an English
bass-baritone
A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing thr ...
and actor, known for his performances and recordings of the
Savoy opera
Savoy opera was a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impr ...
s.
After a brief concert career, Fancourt joined the
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. Th ...
, where he starred in more than 10,000 performances over a 33-year period until his death. He regularly played about ten different roles for the company over these years, including the Pirate King in ''
The Pirates of Penzance
''The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, W. S. Gilbert. Its official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 ...
'', Dick Deadeye in ''
H.M.S. Pinafore
''H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, whic ...
'', and the title character in ''
The Mikado
''The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan, operatic collaborations. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, whe ...
'', which he played more than 3,000 times. Fancourt was famous for his melodramatic style, creating the controversial Mikado laugh that was later adopted by some of his successors. His performances are preserved in nineteen of the company's recordings made between 1923 and 1950.
Early years
Fancourt was born Darrell Louis Fancourt Leverson, the younger son of three children of a Jewish family in
Kensington
Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London.
The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...
, London. His father, Louis George Leverson (1860–1909), was a diamond merchant who had made a fortune in South Africa.
[Wood, p. 114.] His mother, Amelia (Amy) de Symons, ''née'' Lewis-Barned (1865–1931), was "a clever vivacious young artist of the
musical comedy
Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movemen ...
type".
[ Both were staunch friends of the arts.][ His father's sister married ]Brandon Thomas Brandon Thomas may refer to:
*Brandon Thomas (playwright) (1848–1914), English actor and playwright who wrote the hit farce, ''Charley's Aunt''
*Brandon Thomas (musician) (born 1980), American rock band singer
*Brandon Thomas (American football), ...
.[ Lejeune, C. A.br>"The High Noon of Darrell Fancourt"]
, July 1953, reprinted at the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, 28 August 2013 Fancourt was baptised into the Church of England
The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britain ...
when he was fourteen years old.
Fancourt was educated at Bedford School
:''Bedford School is not to be confused with Bedford Girls' School, Bedford High School, Bedford Modern School, Old Bedford School in Bedford, Texas or Bedford Academy in Bedford, Nova Scotia.''
Bedford School is a public school (English indep ...
and with a private tutor in Germany. He continued his vocal studies in Germany with Lilli Lehmann
Lilli Lehmann, born Elisabeth Maria Lehmann, later Elisabeth Maria Lehmann-Kalisch (24 November 1848 – 17 May 1929) was a German operatic soprano. She was also a voice teacher.
Biography
The future opera star's father, Karl-August Lehmann, wa ...
. Upon his return to England, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...
.[ At the Royal Academy, he studied singing with his mother's former teacher, ]Sir Henry Wood
Sir Henry Joseph Wood (3 March 186919 August 1944) was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the The Proms, Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introd ...
,[ and ]Alberto Randegger
Alberto Randegger (13 April 1832 – 18 December 1911) was an Italian-born composer, conductor and singing teacher, best known for promoting opera and new works of British music in England during the Victorian era and for his widely used textbook o ...
, and drama with Richard Temple, creator of many of the Savoy roles in which Fancourt was later famous. While a student, Fancourt performed in opera productions at the Academy, creating the role of Tackleton, the toy merchant, in Alexander Mackenzie's opera ''The Cricket on the Hearth'',[''The Musical Times'', Vol. 55, No. 857, 1 July 1914, pp. 459–60] and playing Colas in Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...
's ''Bastien und Bastienne
' (''Bastien and Bastienne''), K. 50 (revised in 1964 to K. 46b) is a one-act singspiel, a comic opera, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
' was one of Mozart's earliest operas, written in 1768 when he was only twelve years old. It was allegedly commis ...
'', and Benoit in ''La bohème
''La bohème'' (; ) is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions ''quadri'', ''tableaux'' or "images", rather than ''atti'' (acts). composed by Giacomo Puccini between 1893 and 1895 to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe G ...
''. ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' thought him "amusing but not noticeably musical" in the last.
Even before completing his studies, Fancourt was building a concert career in London, the British provinces and the European continent.[Stone, David]
Darrell Fancourt
at Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, 3 September 2003 ''The Times'' said of an Aeolian Hall recital in 1912, "Mr. Fancourt has some noble notes in his voice, except when he forces it occasionally ... Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
's '' Tod und das Mädchen'' was remarkably well characterized; it was quite his best and he made it into a thing of great beauty." In World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, Fancourt volunteered for military service and was commissioned in the London Regiment as a lieutenant. In 1917, while still serving in the army, Fancourt married a beautiful Welsh singer, Eleanor Evans
Eleanor Evans (1893 – 20 December 1969) was a Welsh actress, singer and stage director. She performed in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas for over a span of more than 20 years with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. In 1949, she was appointed as ...
, at St Mark's Church, Hamilton Terrace, London. She had been a fellow student at the Royal Academy. After returning to civilian life in 1919, Fancourt sang in a single performance of ''Prince Igor
''Prince Igor'' ( rus, Князь Игорь, Knyáz Ígor ) is an opera in four acts with a prologue, written and composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the Ancient Russian epic '' The Lay of Igor's Host'', which re ...
'' in Sir Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet, Order of the Companions of Honour, CH (29 April 18798 March 1961) was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Philharmonic and the Roya ...
's opera season at Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London, on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit-and-vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist si ...
as Prince Galitsky under the baton of Albert Coates. This was his only professional appearance in a grand opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterized by large-scale casts and orchestras, and (in their original productions) lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on o ...
, and his only paid acting experience up to that point.[ In the same year, he appeared as a soloist at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts and in ]oratorio
An oratorio () is a large musical composition for orchestra, choir, and soloists. Like most operas, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an instrumental ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias. However, opera is mus ...
elsewhere in London.
Fancourt joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company is a professional British light opera company that, from the 1870s until 1982, staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere. Th ...
in May 1920 to succeed Frederick Hobbs, who had announced his decision to leave the company.[Helperin, Ralph]
"He Who Laughed First"
at the ''Memories of the D'Oyly Carte'' website, accessed 23 July 2010 Fancourt went on for Hobbs as Mountararat in ''Iolanthe
''Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri'' () is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, first performed in 1882. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh of fourteen operatic collaborations by Gilbert ...
'', Arac in ''Princess Ida
''Princess Ida; or, Castle Adamant'' is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was their eighth operatic collaboration of fourteen. ''Princess Ida'' opened at the Savoy Theatre on 5 January 1884, for a ru ...
'' and the title character in ''The Mikado
''The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen Gilbert and Sullivan, operatic collaborations. It opened on 14 March 1885, in London, whe ...
''. In June 1920, Hobbs left, and Fancourt took over the bass-baritone
A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing thr ...
roles, including the above parts, Dick Deadeye in ''H.M.S. Pinafore
''H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, whic ...
'', the Pirate King in ''The Pirates of Penzance
''The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty'' is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, W. S. Gilbert. Its official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 ...
'', Colonel Calverley in ''Patience
(or forbearance) is the ability to endure difficult circumstances. Patience may involve perseverance in the face of delay; tolerance of provocation without responding in disrespect/anger; or forbearance when under strain, especially when faced ...
'', Sir Roderic Murgatroyd in ''Ruddigore
''Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse'', originally called ''Ruddygore'', is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written tog ...
'' and Sergeant Meryll in ''The Yeomen of the Guard
''The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid'', is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888 and ran for 423 performances. This was the eleventh ...
''. In 1921, when ''Cox and Box
''Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers'', is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce '' Box and Cox'' by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic o ...
'' and ''The Sorcerer
''The Sorcerer'' is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of ''The Sorcerer'' is based on a Christmas story, ''An Elixir of Lo ...
'' were revived, Fancourt added the roles of Sergeant Bouncer and Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre to his repertoire. He also appeared as the Usher in ''Trial by Jury
A jury trial, or trial by jury, is a legal proceeding in which a jury makes a decision or findings of fact. It is distinguished from a bench trial in which a judge or panel of judges makes all decisions.
Jury trials are used in a significant ...
'' in 1926, but he thought himself "simply bloody" in the role and soon dropped it. In 1921, his wife, Eleanor Evans, joined the company as a chorister, also playing some smaller principal soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...
roles. She was nicknamed "Snookie" in the company; and, according to fellow D'Oyly Carte performer Derek Oldham
Derek Oldham (29 March 1887 – 20 March 1968) was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in the tenor roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.
After performing in concerts as a boy soprano and workin ...
, "she was so beautiful, was Snookie! We all fell for her, and we gave Darrell a busy time keeping us 'off'." Later in Fancourt's career, his wife was made the company's stage director and director of productions.
Later years
Fancourt continued to play most of the principal bass-baritone roles for D'Oyly Carte until 1953. The company performed almost year-round in repertory during these 33 years, and Fancourt appeared in well over 10,000 performances; he played the title role in ''The Mikado'' more than 3,000 times. Over the years, he performed with the company on seven tours in North America. Known for his excellent diction and vocal technique, Fancourt was an audience favourite during his long tenure.[ "Not only does he possess a velvety resonant bass tone but also has a relaxed vibrato that is particularly elegant." ]J. C. Trewin
John Courtenay Trewin (4 December 1908 – 16 February 1990) was a British journalist, writer and drama critic.
Trewin was born in Plymouth, Devon, although both his parents were Cornish. He was educated at Plymouth College and in 1926 joi ...
called Fancourt "the lord of Gilbert-and-Sullivan playing. ... Fancourt is both a fine singer and, within the Savoy convention, a fine and zestful actor with the gift of a dominating personality. Roderic's song 'When the night wind howls', as Fancourt sings it in the second act of ''Ruddigore'', is at the meridian of that opera and one of the glories of Gilbert-and-Sullivan in the contemporary theatre." ''The Times'' later said, "nobody who heard it will ever forget his singing of 'When the night wind howls'."[
Opinions differed about Fancourt's melodramatic style in his roles, especially his interpretation of his best-known role, that of the Mikado of Japan, and his famous Mikado laugh.][ ]Frederic Lloyd
Frederic Lloyd, OBE (1 July 1918 – 27 July 1995), was an English theatre manager. Most notably, Lloyd was the General Manager of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1951 until its closure in 1982.
Biography
Lloyd was born into an ecclesiastica ...
, who joined the D'Oyly Carte in 1951 and had studied the company's history, told an interviewer that Fancourt invented his interpretation, concerned that the earlier movements used during the Mikado's song could be taken as a Fagin
Fagin is a fictional character and the secondary antagonist in Charles Dickens's 1838 novel ''Oliver Twist''. In the preface to the novel, he is described as a "receiver of stolen goods". He is the leader of a group of children (the Artful Dod ...
-like caricature. According to Lloyd, Fancourt had said that, because of his Jewish background, "I just couldn't go through those movements, it would bother me", and Lloyd reported that, when Fancourt showed Rupert D'Oyly Carte
Rupert D'Oyly Carte (3 November 1876 – 12 September 1948) was an English hotelier, theatre owner and impresario, best known as proprietor of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Savoy Hotel from 1913 to 1948.
Son of the impresario and hotelier R ...
and his stage director J. M. Gordon his new business for the song, they were delighted.[ ]Jessie Bond
Jessie Charlotte Bond (10 January 1853 – 17 June 1942) was an English singer and actress best known for creating the mezzo-soprano soubrette roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. She spent twenty years on the stage, the bulk of the ...
, who had played Pitti-Sing in the 1885 première, was unimpressed: "Who, I want to know, intended that the Mikado should prance about like a madman, hissing out his lines like a serpent? ... The raving monster we so often see now is not one bit like the suave and oily Mikado created y Fancourt's teacher, Richard Templeat the Savoy." ''The Times'' thought that he "undoubtedly loses a good deal of the Mikado's humour... his 'humane Mikado' scene is the one which seems to have travelled farthest from the 'Savoy tradition'." A later ''Times'' review commented more favourably: "Mr Darrell Fancourt... can (and did) add a terrifying aspect to the benignity of his humaner punishment manifesto, and left us wondering how his vocal cords ever managed to function normally after those expressions of emphasis with which he punctuated its paragraphs." ''The Manchester Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' praised Fancourt's fresh approach and added, "He makes more of the punishment-fitting-the-crime song than we can remember having seen from any other actor." ''The Pall Mall Gazette
''The Pall Mall Gazette'' was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood. In 1921, '' The Globe'' merged into ''The Pall Mall Gazette'', which itself was absorbed int ...
'' said, "Mr Fancourt has recognised that people can do with a 'thrill' in these Grand Guignol
''Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol'' (: "The Theatre of the Great Puppet")—known as the Grand Guignol–was a theatre in the Quartier Pigalle, Pigalle district of Paris (7, cité Chaptal). From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962, it spe ...
days. So he has given us a Mikado who really does curdle the blood, with a voice like a steam hammer slowly crushing a ton of Brazil nuts, and a make up of ghastly villainy, and a fiendish, gurgling laugh, which must be heard to be appreciated."[Bettany, unnumbered page] Another critic described the sound of Fancourt's laugh as "a dragon getting up steam".[ With respect to Fancourt's portrayal of the Pirate King, fellow actor ]Henry Lytton
Sir Henry Lytton (born Henry Alfred Jones; 3 January 1865 – 15 August 1936) was an English actor and singer who was the leading exponent of the starring comic patter-baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas from 1909 to 1934. He also sta ...
told an interviewer, "The King should be a story book pirate, not a real one and blood thirsty to boot. But that's the way Mr. Fancourt plays it".[
Fancourt was a cricket fan, an avid golfer and a fine bridge player and was popular among his colleagues.][Obituary, ''The Times'', 31 August 1953, p. 15][Darrell Fancourt profile]
at the ''Memories of the D'Oyly Carte'' website, accessed 2 August 2010 By the late 1940s, his health began to fail, and in 1950 he gave up the role of Mountararat. In his last year, he continued to perform although he was very ill.[ Fancourt received the OBE in June 1953 in the Coronation Honours shortly after announcing his forthcoming retirement.][''The Times'', 22 June 1953, p. 3] ''The Illustrated London News
''The Illustrated London News'' appeared first on Saturday 14 May 1842, as the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. Founded by Herbert Ingram, it appeared weekly until 1971, then less frequently thereafter, and ceased publication in ...
'' commented, "He will be the greatest loss to professional Gilbert-and-Sullivan since Henry Lytton
Sir Henry Lytton (born Henry Alfred Jones; 3 January 1865 – 15 August 1936) was an English actor and singer who was the leading exponent of the starring comic patter-baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas from 1909 to 1934. He also sta ...
retired … Besides his voice and presence, he has the priceless gift of attack. To watch him attacking ''The Mikado'' is to watch high tide flooding across the beach: it is an irresistible surge and swell."[Trewin, J. C. "The World of the Theatre", ''Illustrated London News'', 11 July 1953, p. 74] Fancourt was too ill to make his scheduled final appearance, and as a last gesture he asked a friend to take his make-up to his successor, Donald Adams
Charles Donald Adams (20 December 1928 – 8 April 1996) was an English opera singer and actor, best known for his performances in bass-baritone roles of the Savoy operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and his own company, Gilbert and Sull ...
.[
Fancourt died in August 1953 at the age of 67, 33 days after giving his last performance.][
]
Recordings
Fancourt participated in nineteen D'Oyly Carte recordings between 1923 and 1950 in the following roles: 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 see]
here
Notes
References
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External links
Photo of Fancourt in ''The Mikado'' in 1926
Photo of Fancourt as Sir Roderic in 1926
Another photo as Sir Roderic
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fancourt, Darrell
1886 births
1953 deaths
English opera singers
People educated at Bedford School
Pupils of Alberto Randegger
Officers of the Order of the British Empire
20th-century English singers