Edward Downes

Sir Edward Thomas "Ted" Downes, CBE (17 June 1924 – 10 July 2009) was an English conductor, specialising in opera.

He and his wife, Lady Joan Downes, committed assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland on 10 July 2009, an event that received significant media coverage.

[1] A scholarship to the Royal College of Music to study composition (with Ralph Vaughan Williams and R. O. Morris) and horn (with Frank Probin) followed.

[1] After the company's temporary closure in 1951, Downes began a long and fruitful association with the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1952 with his appointment as an assistant to Rafael Kubelík.

His next job was singing the role of Tristan in stage rehearsals under Barbirolli, pending the arrival Ludwig Suthaus, then teaching the local singers in Elektra.

[3] His first conducting assignment was taking over from John Barbirolli in La bohème in Bulawayo, while at Covent Garden, it was in 1954 for Der Freischütz.

[1] Downes's first experience of conducting a new production came about by accident when the eminent elderly French conductor Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht proved unable to hold the ensemble together, so that after the general rehearsal David Webster and the French ambassador in London persuaded Inghelbrecht to withdraw, and Downes took over from the opening night.

[3] Downes remained a company member for 17 years, returning annually thereafter as a guest conductor before assuming the post of Associate Music Director in 1991.

He advocated the symphonies of George Lloyd (also conducting a radio performance of John Socman) and premiered works by Alan Bush, Peter Maxwell Davies and Malcolm Arnold.

[3] However, the full plans were not completed and Downes expressed regret that he had never conducted Alzira, Un giorno di regno or, especially, Les vêpres siciliennes.

[12][13] A statement issued by the couple's children said that while Downes could have gone on living with his deafness and blindness, he did not want to do so after his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer.