Thomas Round

Thomas Round (18 October 1915 – 2 October 2016) was an English opera singer and actor, best known for his performances in the leading tenor roles of the Savoy Operas and grand opera.

Round began working as a joiner and then a police officer. During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force, training in Texas and later becoming a flight instructor for the United States Army Air Forces, while singing in churches. He sang leading tenor roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1946 to 1949. He next spent six years in the 1950s singing opera and operetta with Sadler's Wells Opera. From 1958 to 1964, Round again performed mostly with the D'Oyly Carte company. In 1963, he co-founded a new ensemble, Gilbert and Sullivan for All, with which he toured extensively over the next two decades, singing and serving as one of the company's directors. He also sang in oratorio and concerts, broadcast on radio and television, and is heard on many recordings. Round continued to perform and lecture into his 90s.

Life and career

Early life and military service

Round was born and raised in Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire (now in Cumbria)."World class Gilbert and Sullivan tenor dies, aged 100"
'' The Visitor'', October 2016"Thomas Round"
''Memories of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company'', accessed 5 July 2010 He was the third of four children of a furnace man at a steel mill."Thomas Round"
''The Times'', 27 December 2016, p. 50 Round began singing as a child in the St Paul's Mission church choir, where he met his future wife, Alice York."Happy 100th birthday to opera legend"
''Lancaster Guardian'', 17 October 2015 On leaving Barrow Technical College at the age of 15, he started working at the mill as an apprentice joiner and competed at some music festivals."Thomas Round, Gilbert and Sullivan performer – obituary"
''The Telegraph'', 4 October 2016 In 1936 he joined the police force and was stationed in Lancaster."He's a man who knows the score"
''The Lancaster Guardian'', 10 November 2005 He found his duties generally dull, although he was posted to guard the house where Dr Buck Ruxton had notoriously killed his wife and housemaid the previous year. During this time, he enjoyed performing with local musical societies. In 1938 he married Alice at St Paul's Church, Barrow, and the couple had one son, Ellis, born in 1942, who became an aeronautical engineer.

During World War II, Round became a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force and was posted to Canada and then the No. 1 British Flying Training School in Terrell, Texas, serving as a flying instructor for the United States Air Force.Stone, David
Thomas Round
at ''Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company'', 4 April 2003, accessed 5 July 2010 He then began his performing career, later recalling, "I was doing a lot of singing every Sunday in churches all over Texas. I had my own plane so I would fly down 300 miles to San Antonio for an 11 a.m. service, I would sing and then I would fly back home in the evening." He also performed on the radio and was offered the chance to appear as a guest in a college production in Dallas, playing Canio in '' Pagliacci''. "It was my first time in any type of production but I loved it." Round was offered a place at a music school in New York, but turned it down to return home to England in 1943.

D'Oyly Carte and Sadler's Wells years

While still in the RAF, Round auditioned for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and joined it upon his discharge, in February 1946. He understudied the leading Gilbert and Sullivan tenor roles, appearing occasionally as Nanki-Poo in ''The Mikado''. In September of the same year, he became the company's principal tenor, for the next three years, playing the roles of Ralph Rackstraw in ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', Frederic in ''The Pirates of Penzance'', Earl Tolloller in '' Iolanthe'', Nanki-Poo in ''The Mikado'', and Luiz in ''The Gondoliers''.

Round found the D'Oyly Carte touring schedule gruelling and left company in 1949. He appeared in Emile Littler's musical ''Waltzes from Vienna'', playing the young Johann Strauss, and two ice shows, '' Rose Marie on Ice'' (1950) and the ''London Melody''. Next, he sang for six years with Sadler's Wells Opera. He appeared in some comic character parts such as Don Basilio in '' The Marriage of Figaro'', but generally took the leading romantic tenor roles, including Tamino in ''The Magic Flute'', Jeník in ''The Bartered Bride'', and Don Ottavio in '' Don Giovanni''. He played roles in ''Gianni Schicchi'', '' Lilac Time'', ''Eugene Onegin'', and less-frequently staged works including Rimsky Korsakov's ''The Snow Maiden'' (Tsar Berendei), Wolf-Ferrari's '' School for Fathers'' (Count Riccardo), and John Gardner's adaptation of ''The Moon and Sixpence''.

During his Sadler's Wells years, Round undertook guest engagements elsewhere. He created the tenor lead, Nils, in the world premiere of Delius's '' Irmelin'' under Sir Thomas Beecham in Oxford in 1953. The critic Eric Blom wrote, "Thomas Round as the hero was particularly good. He should soon make a Siegfried, though perhaps only the young Siegfried to begin with." Also in 1953, he appeared in the film ''The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan''. The following year, he rejoined D'Oyly Carte as a guest artist for a short period, playing Prince Hilarion in a new production of ''Princess Ida'' at the Savoy Theatre. In 1955 he and the young Heather Harper played the leads in a televised version of '' La traviata'',"B.B.C. Experiment with Opera – Verdi's ''La Traviata'' on Television", ''The Times'', 11 October 1955, p. 13. Verdi's characters Alfredo and Violetta were in this version called Armand and Marguerite as in the novel, ''La Dame aux Camélias'', on which the opera is based. which was the first full-length opera ever shown on BBC television. In 1958, he participated in the Royal Variety Performance. Round sang Don Luis in the zarzuela '' El barberillo de Lavapiés'' (''The Little Barber of Lavapiés'', in a version by Geoffrey Dunn) for a BBC radio broadcast in 1954.

Round returned to D'Oyly Carte, on tour in 1958 in Dublin, playing his old roles of Frederic, Nanki-Poo, adding Ralph, and, for the first time, Marco in ''The Gondoliers'', the following season.Rollins and Witts, pp. 182–83 During the company's summer break in 1958, Round earned more good notices as Count Danilo opposite June Bronhill with Sadler's Wells in ''The Merry Widow'' at the London Coliseum. ''The Musical Times'' found him "dashingly stylish". The production was made into the first film by a major British opera company of ''The Merry Widow'' (1958). The same year, he appeared in the Royal Variety Performance.
Morey, Cynthia. "Obituaries: Thomas Round", ''Gilbert & Sullivan News'', Vol. V, No.12, Autumn/Winter 2016, pp. 18–19 He also played principal roles in '' Pagliacci'', In 1960 and 1961 he assumed a new role, Colonel Fairfax, in ''The Yeomen of the Guard'', also appearing in that role for the City of London Festival production at the Tower of London in 1962. In 1961, his other new roles were Richard Dauntless in ''Ruddigore'' and Cyril in ''Princess Ida'', and he participated in 1962–63 in the company's extensive North American tour. By 1963, Philip Potter had taken over the parts of Frederic and Nanki-Poo, but Round added the role of the Defendant in ''Trial by Jury'' and resumed singing Tolloller in ''Iolanthe''. In 1964, he again left the D'Oyly Carte company. He told ''The Times'', "For the first time in my career I am not under contract to anyone, and I find this quite exciting." Round built up a popular following particularly among female members of the D'Oyly Carte and Sadler's Wells audiences.

Gilbert and Sullivan for All

In 1963, Round, together with Norman Meadmore and Donald Adams, founded their own ensemble, Gilbert and Sullivan for All. In 1969, when Adams left D'Oyly Carte, the partners began to tour extensively with this new company in the British Isles, the Far East, Australasia, and North America, including three Hollywood Bowl concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic."Mellow Songs of Autumn", ''The Guardian'', 16 May 1996, p. 15 To enable the company to appear in small venues, Sullivan's orchestrations were adapted and arranged for smaller forces than D'Oyly Carte employed. Other regular members of the ensemble were Valerie Masterson and Gillian Knight. Round sang the roles of Box in ''Cox and Box'', the Defendant in ''Trial'', Ralph in ''H.M.S. Pinafore'', Frederic in ''Pirates'', Tolloller in ''Iolanthe'', Nanki-Poo in ''The Mikado'', Richard Dauntless in ''Ruddigore'', Colonel Fairfax in ''Yeomen'', and Marco in ''The Gondoliers'', as well as acting as a director for the company. Gilbert and Sullivan for All wound down in the 1980s, but Round and Adams continued to appear in Gilbert and Sullivan together into the 1990s.

During his Gilbert and Sullivan for All years, Round also appeared as Arthur Sullivan on tour with Donald Adams in ''Tarantara! Tarantara!'', a musical about the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership by Ian Taylor. Among other non-Gilbert and Sullivan appearances in the 1960s, Round played Henry Higgins in ''My Fair Lady''. In the 1970s, Round and Adams presented a television series about the Savoy operas, devoting each programme to an individual opera.

Later years and retirement

Throughout his career, Round continued to give concerts and to sing in oratorio and recitals. He was frequently heard on BBC
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