Isidore Godfrey

A rare exception to touring with the company came in December 1932, when he shared the conducting with Sir Thomas Beecham at a royal charity matinée before King George V and Queen Mary.

[12] In the same month, Godfrey conducted the first complete broadcast of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, The Yeomen of the Guard, on Christmas Eve 1932, relayed live from the Savoy Theatre by the BBC.

[15] During Godfrey's long reign as musical director, he conducted artists who had worked under the direction of W. S. Gilbert, such as Henry Lytton, Leo Sheffield and Sydney Granville, and those who were performing at the last night of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1982, such as John Reed and Kenneth Sandford.

[16][17] In his early years in charge, Godfrey, with Rupert D'Oyly Carte's backing, gradually cut down the number of encores routinely given at the company's performances.

[18] The stars and the audiences both resisted, but Godfrey eventually made progress, particularly after the outbreak of World War II, when it was important to keep running times down to a reasonable length.

Godfrey's weekly reports to the company office in London included wry accounts of drummers in Oxford who could not read music, a nervous cellist in Liverpool who played on three strings at once and a bass player in Wimbledon who took a night off and sent an inebriated substitute.

In the 1950s, the magazine The Gramophone commented: "Whenever Mr. Isidore Godfrey enters the orchestra pit to direct an opera by Sullivan, to whose music he has devoted much of his life, he must presumably steel his aesthetic sense to doing justice to the composer with the tiny forces at his disposal.

[24] He retired from the D'Oyly Carte company in February 1968 and was succeeded as musical director by his deputy, James Walker, formerly of Decca Records.

[11] After retirement, when he held the honorary position of President of the associate members of the D'Oyly Carte Trust, ill-health prevented him from making many guest appearances, but he conducted H.M.S.

[25] Godfrey was widely admired for his consistent skill in giving Arthur Sullivan's scores their essential joie de vivre.

As early as 1926, Malcolm Sargent joining the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company found "a brilliant young assistant named Isidore Godfrey whom I realised at once was made of the right stuff for Sullivan".

"[29] The New York Times concurred, "Isidore Godfrey, happily a fixture in the pit, leads the overture with a respect and affection for its delicacies and that is the fashion in which he orders the musical side of the entire performance.

[38] From 1957–66, the company re-recorded its full repertory for Decca, this time in stereo,[39] adding the first professional recording of Cox and Box[40] and highlights from Utopia, Limited.

[41] Godfrey once again conducted the entire series, except for Princess Ida and The Yeomen of the Guard, for which Sir Malcolm Sargent was guest conductor.

Godfrey, c. 1962