Sybil Evers

Sybil Marjorie Evers (19 June 1904 – 24 June 1963) was an English singer and actress. She performed in operettas, operas and plays in London from the early 1920s through the late 1930s, including on BBC radio and television. She married Olympic champion runner Harold Abrahams.

Early life and education

Evers was born and raised in Rugby, Warwickshire. Her father Claude was a housemaster at the Rugby School for boys. Her mother Jessie was a talented water-colourist and instilled a love for the arts in Sybil, who quickly became interested in musical comedy, producing playlets and composing tunes as a child.Ryan, p. 188. Evers trained as a singer at the Royal College of Music.Ryan, p. 189.

Career

Evers made her professional stage debut on 9 July 1924, as Susan in Ralph Vaughan Williams' ''Hugh the Drover'', a romantic ballad opera in two acts, at the Parry Opera Theatre. In 1927, at Daly's Theatre, she was Nixie in a single performance of ''The Ladder'', a musical fantasy.

From March 1930 to September 1931, Evers sang small roles at the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. These included Kate in ''The Pirates of Penzance'', the Lady Saphir in ''Patience'', Leila in '' Iolanthe'', Peep-Bo in ''The Mikado'' and Vittoria in ''The Gondoliers''. Occasionally she substituted for Marjorie Eyre in the larger mezzo-soprano roles of Tessa in ''The Gondoliers'' and Mad Margaret in ''Ruddigore''.Stone, David
Sybil Evers
, ''Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company'', 28 January 2002, accessed 8 November 2009

Following her stint with D'Oyly Carte, Evers often alternated between the Webber-Douglas and the Chanticleer opera companies. She appeared in operettas, operas and plays in a variety of London venues. In 1934 she entertained the seven-year-old Princess Elizabeth at the Cambridge Theatre in ''Ever So Long Ago'', a children's play by Brian Hill and Laura Wildig; the piece was reportedly the first play seen by the princess. At the Open Air Theatre in 1934, she played the Lady in Milton's ''Comus''. ''The Times'' wrote, "Miss Sybil Evers ... was the very incarnation of Milton's idea of the queen-hood of innocence, and her first entrance onto an empty stage was pure beauty."Ryan, p. 190. In the mid-1930s, Evers also sang Susanna in '' The Marriage of Figaro''. One reviewer noted, "''Figaro'' being what it is, a combination of 'opera buffa' and sophisticated comedy of manners, those who perform it must be able not only to sing well but also to act well. ... For Susanna we have Miss Sybil Evers and she is entrancing. She also knows a thing or two about acting and oh, the difference to us!"

In January 1937, Evers played the title role in Rutland Boughton's ''The Lily Maid'' at the Winter Garden Theatre. In April and May 1937, in honour of the coronation of King George VI, she sang in three performances of ''Parsifal'' at Covent Garden, as one of the six Flowermaidens. The performances were recorded for posterity but not released commercially. Evers also performed at the Criterion and Arts Theatres, and in December 1938 she was Hansel in Humperdinck's opera ''Hansel and Gretel'' at the Scala Theatre.

By the early 1930s, Evers also sang for the BBC
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