Sir Willard Wentworth White, OM, CBE (born 10 October 1946) is a Jamaican-born British operatic bass baritone.
In a visit to Jamaica, Evelyn Rothwell, the oboist and wife of conductor Sir John Barbirolli, heard him sing and suggested that he go to study in London.
In addition to covering a wide range of the bass-baritone roles in the standard repertoire by Mozart, Handel, Rossini, Verdi, Puccini and Wagner, White has also explored less traditional territory by appearing as Bluebeard in Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle,[5] Golaud in Debussy's Pelléas and Mélisande, Tchélio in Prokofiev's The Love for Three Oranges, the title role in Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise, Nekrotzar in Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre, Claggart in Britten's Billy Budd, John Adams' El Niño, Nick Shadow in Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress, Creon in Stravinsky's Oedipus Rex, the title role in Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Ivan in Khovanshchina.
He has starred in non-singing roles, such as a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Othello (1989), with Ian McKellen as Iago and Imogen Stubbs as Desdemona.
[9] In August 2020, White caused some controversy when he refused to sing Oley Speaks' setting of Rudyard Kipling's poem "Mandalay", as a planned part of the UK's VJ commemorations, because it "made him feel uncomfortable".
[10][11] On 22 May 2021 at the age of 74, he sang the role of Seneca in the premiere of the Vienna State Opera production of Claudio Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea.