Elizabeth Harwood

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Handel's Semele
, 1964

Elizabeth Harwood (27 May 1938 – 22 June 1990) was an English lyric soprano. After a music school, she enjoyed an operatic career lasting for over two decades and worked with such conductors as Colin Davis and Herbert von Karajan. She was one of the few English singers of her generation to be invited to sing in productions at the Salzburg Festival and La Scala, Milan, as well as at the Metropolitan Opera.

After early performances at

Lieder
recitals.

She died of cancer at the age of 52.

Biography

Early years

Harwood was born in

Verdi competition in Busseto.[6]

Operatic career

Harwood made her professional début as Second Boy in

Messiah in December 1960, Harwood's fellow soloists included Janet Baker, with whom she later made a series of critically praised appearances for Scottish Opera.[8]

In 1961

Massenet's Manon and of Richard Strauss's coloratura parts, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos and the Fiakermilli in Arabella.[2] Of this period The Times said, "Here Colin Davis was one of the leading influences on a soprano who looked well on stage and sang with a sense of fun."[6]

In 1965 Harwood took a break from Sadler's Wells, and toured Australia with the Sutherland Williamson Grand Opera Company, alternating with

Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini.[6] Her other Covent Garden roles included Oscar in Un ballo in maschera, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, Norina in Don Pasquale, and the title roles in Arabella and Manon
.

For

Così fan Tutte to the Dorabella of Janet Baker,[12] as well as Sophie to Baker's Oktavian in Der Rosenkavalier.[13] In 1967, Harwood had played Donna Elvira in the Aix-en-Provence Festival's production of Don Giovanni. She was invited back in 1969 for Acis and Galatea. Her success in this and in her Scottish Opera roles attracted the attention of Herbert von Karajan, who invited her to appear at the Salzburg Festival the following year.[3] There she played Fiordiligi and Constanze, and two years later Karajan cast her as the Countess in his Salzburg production of The Marriage of Figaro.[6] He invited her to play roles at several more Salzburg Festivals.[14] She made her début at La Scala, Milan, as Constanze in 1971[15] and played other roles there in 1972.[3] Her début at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, was in 1975 as Fiordiligi. For Glyndebourne, Harwood played Fiordiligi, Countess Almaviva, and, in 1982, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier.[16] Her last operatic performance was in 1983 in La colombe at Sadlers' Wells.[3]

Concerts and last years

Throughout her career, Harwood gave numerous recitals and took part in many oratorios. She performed over 100 times in Messiah, the first time being at age 16, filling in for her mother. During the 1980s, she toured in concert internationally, including New Zealand (1983), Australia (1986), and British Columbia (1988). She was invited to sing on many occasions at the Rasiguères Festival of Wine and Music in France.

Lieder at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Wigmore Hall than at Covent Garden".[6] One of her later appearances was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1986, in a programme including Schubert Lieder.[17] Her final public performance was in November 1989 at the Bath Festival.[18]

In 1966, she married the businessman Julian A. C. Royle, a publisher of greetings cards.[1] They had one son, Nicholas.[14]

Harwood died at her home in Fryerning, Essex, England in 1990, aged 52, from cancer.[14] The Musical Times wrote of her,

"Elizabeth Harwood's lovely, warm voice, with its effortless production and evenness throughout a remarkable range, was matched by her level-headed approach to the world of opera and the generous nature of her personality."[19]

Janet Baker said this about Harwood: "Elizabeth was the most beloved of my colleagues, a beautiful person in every way. Her art lit up the stage."[20] The Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Award for Singers is given every year by the Royal Northern College of Music.

Recordings

Harwood made many recordings. Among her earliest were a series of Gilbert and Sullivan discs, beginning with an abbreviated The Mikado recorded in Hamburg in 1961[21] along with other selections for World Record Club discs.[22] She was a guest artist for Decca with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1964 as Elsie in The Yeomen of the Guard and in the title role in Princess Ida.[23] Under the baton of Karajan, she recorded the title role of The Merry Widow for Deutsche Grammophon, and Musetta in La bohème for Decca. In Benjamin Britten's recording of his A Midsummer Night's Dream, she sang Tytania. Her other opera recordings include Delius's A Village Romeo and Juliet.[24] A video recording of Harwood as Violetta in La traviata was issued in 1999.[25] She appeared in the 1985 Tony Palmer film about Handel God Rot Tunbridge Wells!, singing 'I know that my redeemer liveth' from Messiah.[26]

She had only one solo recital disc, a selection of English art songs by Frederick Delius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Frank Bridge, Arnold Bax, Michael Head, George Lloyd, and Roger Quilter recorded in London in 1983, released on the Conifer label, with John Constable on the piano. It has not been reissued on compact disc. Another disc of traditional English songs such as Cherry Ripe and Early One Morning was a joint recital with baritone Owen Brannigan from 1964, conducted by Charles Mackerras.

In

Handelian style and the emerging smaller-scale "period performance" style, recording the soprano part in Messiah for both Sir Malcolm Sargent, a traditionalist, and Charles Mackerras, whose 1967 recording was a landmark in period performance.[27]

There is a recording of "Rigoletto" from Sadler's Wells Opera, in English, with Elizabeth Harwood, Donald Smith, Peter Glossop, Donald McIntyre, with the Sadler's Wells Orchestra conducted by James Lockhart - possibly 1963.

Notes

  1. ^
    The Gramophone
    , September 1973, p. 25
  2. ^ a b c Blyth, Alan. "Elizabeth Harwood", Grove Music Online, accessed 9 December 2009 (subscription required).
  3. ^ a b c d e f Wickham, M. Sarah. The Elizabeth Harwood Papers Archived 22 December 2012 at archive.today at the Royal Northern College of Music, archiveshub, 2003, accessed 10 December 2009
  4. The Manchester Guardian
    , 28 November 1958, p. 11
  5. ^ The Guardian, 23 April 1960, p. 12
  6. ^ a b c d e f g The Times obituary, 23 June 1990, p. 23
  7. ^ The Guardian, 1 June 1960, p. 9
  8. ^ The Guardian, 26 November 1960, p. 5
  9. ^ The Guardian, 27 October 1961, p. 9
  10. ^ The Guardian, 21 February 1963, p. 7
  11. ^ The Gilbert and Sullivan Journal, September 1964, p. 244
  12. ^ The Times, 12 February 1969, p. 8
  13. ^ The Guardian, 23 May 1971, p. 27
  14. ^ a b c "Elizabeth Harwood, A British Soprano, 52", The New York Times obituary, 24 June 1990, accessed 10 December 2009
  15. ^ The Times, 4 December 1971, p. 9
  16. ^ The Guardian, 18 June 1982, p. 11
  17. ^ The Musical Times, September 1986, p. 535
  18. ^ The Gramophone, August 1990, p. 21
  19. ^ Hartford, Robert. The Musical Times obituary, September 1990, p. 343
  20. ^ The Times, 23 June 1990, p. 3
  21. ^ Liner notes to EMI Classics for Pleasure CD 0946 3 35973 2 7, issued 2005
  22. ^ Shepherd, Marc. Artist Index at A Gilbert ad Sullivan Discography, accessed 10 December 2009.
  23. ^ The Guardian, 20 December 1965, p. 7
  24. ^ The Gramophone, February 1973, p 97
  25. ^ The Gramophone
  26. ^ WorldCat entry for DVD of God rot Tunbridge Wells : the life of Georg Frederic Handel accessed 19 February 2024, and booklet accompanying TPDVD114, 2008.
  27. ^ The Gramophone, December 1989, p. 128

External links

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