Alexander Basil Young (London, 18 October 1920 – Macclesfield, 5 March 2000) was an English tenor who had an active career performing in concerts and operas from the late 1940s through the early 1970s.
[1] After vocal studies at the Royal College of Music with Steffan Pollmann,[2] and undertaking his war service, Young made his professional debut at the 1950 Edinburgh Festival as Scaramuccio in a Glyndebourne production of Ariadne auf Naxos conducted by Beecham.
[3] In 1953 he performed the role of Tom Rakewell in the United Kingdom premiere of Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, a Third Programme broadcast.
[1] In 1958 Young took part, with Jennifer Vyvyan and the Goldsbrough Orchestra, in two concerts broadcast on the Third Programme, of excerpts from Mozart operas conducted by Charles Mackerras, incorporating important sources from the Fürstenberg Library in Donaueschingen, an early effort to perform these works in a historically-informed manner.
[4] He created the roles of Charles Darnay in Benjamin's A Tale of Two Cities (1953), Philippe in Berkeley's A Dinner Engagement (1954) and Cicero in Hamilton's The Catiline Conspiracy (1974).