Avon Saxon

Avon Dawson Saxon (c. 1857 – 24 March 1909) was a Canadian operatic and concert singer who created the role of Friar Tuck in the romantic opera Ivanhoe (1891) by Arthur Sullivan and Julian Sturgis and Francal in Mirette by André Messager at the Savoy Theatre in 1894.

[3] The critic of The Times wrote of his performance, "Mr. Avon Saxon is in all respects an excellent Friar Tuck, burly and good-humoured; he may well be the latter, for he has the most taking number of the opera to sing, and delivers it with all possible effect.

"[7] In January 1892 he sailed from Southampton for Cape Town in South Africa;[8] in February 1893 Saxon again travelled from the UK to South Africa with his wife, the singer Virginie Cheron,[9] returning to the UK in October 1893[10] to begin rehearsals for the comic opera Wapping Old Stairs at the Vaudeville Theatre, in which he played Ben Brace during February and April 1894 opposite Courtice Pounds, Richard Temple and Herbert Sparling;[11][12] from July to August 1894 he created the role of Francal, the gypsy chief in the opéra comique Mirette by André Messager at the Savoy Theatre in London.

[13] In September 1894 he opened as Major Victor Pulvereitzer in Jakobowski's comic opera The Queen of Brilliants, starring Lillian Russell at the Lyceum Theatre.

[1][19][20] In June 1907 he appeared before a magistrate in New York after he was found in a confused state on Sixth Avenue and was committed to a workhouse, presumably that in Blackwell's Island.

Between the "las" he told the Magistrate he played the part of Escamillo, opposite Zélie de Lussan, the first time she sang Carmen.

His wife, he said, was Virginia Cheron, formerly of the Opera Comique of Paris, from whom he is divorced.Saxon was picked up by Policeman Corevan of the Charles Street Station, who noticed his acting strangely on Sixth Avenue, near the Court House.