Donald Adams
With Thomas Round and Norman Meadmore, he formed the touring company, Gilbert and Sullivan for All, in which he continued to sing bass and bass-baritone roles as well as directing.
[3] He studied with an Italian singing teacher in London, Rodolfo Melle (who had sung at La Scala with the tenor Aureliano Pertile), who taught Adams to sustain the vowels of a word before reaching the consonants.
[6] Adams was hired by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as a chorister in 1951 and soon began to play the small roles of Bill Bobstay in H.M.S.
Pinafore, the Pirate King, Colonel Calverley, the Earl of Mountararat, the Mikado of Japan, Sir Roderic in Ruddigore, Sergeant Meryll in The Yeomen of the Guard, and Arac in Princess Ida (when that opera was revived in 1954).
[9] Although he had admired Fancourt, when he took over the roles, Adams asked Bridget D'Oyly Carte if he could create his own characterisations, which she agreed to, saying she would tell him if he overstepped the mark.
[2] In 1969, Adams began to perform full-time with Gilbert and Sullivan for All, a touring company that he had founded several years earlier with Norman Meadmore and Thomas Round.
Adams played the roles of Cox in Cox and Box, the Usher in Trial by Jury, Dick Deadeye in Pinafore, the Pirate King in Pirates, Lord Mountararat in Iolanthe, the title role in The Mikado, Sir Roderic in Ruddigore, Sergeant Meryll in Yeomen, and Don Alhambra in The Gondoliers, as well as acting as a director for the company.
He was invited by Matthew Epstein to sing the title role in the Peter Sellars version of The Mikado in Chicago in 1983, which led to many seasons there, including as Baron Zeta in The Merry Widow and the Theatre Director and the Banker in Lulu.
[4] Adams sang with English National Opera many times, beginning in 1985 as Dikoj in Katya Kabanova, Mozart's Bartolo in 1991 and 1993 ("the only truly rounded, Mozart-size performance is the Dr Bartolo of the immortal Donald Adams", said The Times),[10] Pooh-Bah in The Mikado, Alcindoro/Benoit in La bohème in 1991, the Woodcutter in Königskinder in 1992, Mumlal in The Two Widows in 1993, Quince in A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1995, and Don Pasquale (1996).
His Baron Ochs in Der Rosenkavalier (1990) for WNO was described by The Independent as "a triumph for the singer, now 62 years of age, and no longer in his finest or freshest voice, but who made up for any vocal deficiency by the marvellously subtle way he handled the text".
He also appeared in the title role in D'Oyly Carte's 1966 film of The Mikado and as the voice of Sir Roderic Murgatroyd in the Halas and Batchelor cartoon version of Ruddigore.
He was prohibited by contract from recording the roles he had played with D'Oyly Carte, and so in this collection he sang Ko-Ko in The Mikado, the Sergeant of Police in Pirates, Private Willis in Iolanthe, Don Alhambra in The Gondoliers, and Reginald Bunthorne and Major Murgatroyd in Patience.
