Soprano April Cantelo, who has died at the age of 96, excelled in music from the Baroque period to the contemporary, on stage and in the concert hall. She was involved in many premieres of new works.
Her operatic debut as a soloist came with the Glyndebourne Festival company at the Edinburgh Festival of 1950, singing Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro and Echo in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos. She repeated these at the company’s base in Lewes, East Sussex, then added Blonde in Die Entführung aus dem Serail (1953), Marzelline in Fidelio (1963), and finally Erisbe in Cavalli’s L’Ormindo, directed by the composer’s great champion at Glyndebourne, Raymond Leppard, on the company’s first British tour (1968–69).
In the early 1950s she appeared at the Royal Opera House as Barbarina and the Countess Ceprano (Rigoletto), and had small roles in The Magic Flute and Massenet’s Manon. At the Aldeburgh Festival of 1952 she starred in Arthur Oldham’s new adaptation of Thomas Arne’s 1762 pasticcio, Love in a Village. At the Wexford Festival she appeared in Rossini’s La Cenerentola (1956, as Clorinda) and Rossini’s L’italiana in Algeri (1957, as Elvira). The following year she sang in a Handel Opera Society production of Theodora at St Pancras Town Hall, London.
Her most prominent operatic premiere was creating the role of Helena in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Aldeburgh in 1960. She appeared in the first performances of several operas by Malcolm Williamson: as Beatrice in Our Man in Havana (1963), Miss Beswick in English Eccentrics (1964), Swallow in The Happy Prince (1965), as well as Ann in Julius Caesar Jones and Berthe in The Violins of Saint-Jacques (both 1966) and a number of small roles in Lucky Peter’s Journey (1970).
Other premieres included Lennox Berkeley’s A Dinner Engagement (1954) and Ruth (1956), Amelia in Thomas Eastwood’s Christopher Sly (1960) and Gordon Crosse’s The Grace of Todd (1969), as well as the title role of John Eccles’ Semele, composed in the early 18th century but not performed until 1972. One of the major UK premieres was the first professional British production of Telemann’s Der Geduldige Socrates, performed by Kent Opera in 1974.
Cantelo has played in Orff’s Carmina Burana, Vaughan Williams’ Pastoral Symphony, Haydn’s Nelson Mass and works by Monteverdi, Cavalli, Purcell, Berlioz and Williamson.
Her recital programmes have ranged from lute songs through the Baroque to lieder and contemporary works. In 1967 she took part in the inaugural Purcell Room recital, a tribute to the composer himself, alongside tenor Robert Tear, cellist Bernard Richards and Leppard on harpsichord.
She was a highly effective actress, and her skills were displayed in leading roles such as Manon Lescaut in Henze’s Boulevard Solitude (presented by the New Opera Company at Sadler’s Wells, 1962), and as Jenny in Brecht and Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, presented by Sadler’s Wells Opera (1963), both British premieres. In 1982 she sang Ludmila in The Bartered Bride at Welsh National Opera.
Williamson was originally from Australia and Cantelo’s involvement with his operas took her there and to New Zealand, where she directed a production of Purcell’s The Fairy Queen at the University of Canterbury in 1972.
April was born in Purbrook, Hampshire, the daughter of Herbert Cantelo, an amateur cellist, and his wife, Marie (née Abraham). She was educated at Chelmsford Girls’ School, Essex. A skilled pianist and singer, she went on to study piano and singing at the Royal College of Music, London, the latter under Julian Kimbell and Frederic Jackson.
An audition at Dartington Hall led to six months of singing lessons with Imogen Holst, among others. She was accepted as a student by the National School of Opera (now the National Opera Studio) and developed under the experienced conductor Vilém Tauský and the school’s co-founder, the eminent soprano Joan Cross, who herself created roles in several of Britten’s most important works.
Cantelo began her professional life as a member of the New English Singers, the Deller Consort and the Glyndebourne Chorus.
When she joined the choir in 1948, she met Colin Davis, a young clarinetist in the orchestra who wanted to make a name for himself as a conductor; they married the following year. She remained the primary breadwinner for a considerable period as Davis’s career slowly took off. They had two children, Suzanne and Christopher. The marriage ended in 1964 after Davis fell in love with the family’s au pair, Ashraf Naini, who became his second wife later that year.
Cantelo continued her career and later became a sought-after and respected teacher at leading institutions such as the Royal Northern College of Music and the (now Royal) Welsh College of Music and Drama. Her most notable students include the soprano Rosemary Joshua.
After retiring, she ran an amateur choir in Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire, and was able to call on former top singing colleagues to provide solo parts during performances.
Her recording legacy, made from the 1950s to the 1970s, is substantial. Notable from the Baroque period are Charpentier’s Messe de Minuit pour Noël and Handel’s Ode for St Cecilia’s Day under David Willcocks, Messiah under Walter Susskind, Purcell’s The Indian Queen under Charles Mackerras and the same composer’s Hail! Bright Cecilia under Michael Tippett.
There are Haydn masses under George Guest, Héro in Berlioz’s Béatrice et Bénédict under Davis, Miss Wordsworth in Britten’s Albert Herring and Juliet in his The Little Sweep – both conducted by the composer – and several works by Williamson, as well as Hugh Wood. BBC studio recordings of Wagner’s early works Die Feen (in which she sang the role of Ada) and Das Liebesverbot (Isabella) were subsequently issued by Deutsche Grammophon.
Among the solo CDs there is another collaboration with Leppard, in which she composes a collection of compositions by Shakespeare from the 18th century. Here she is seen from her best side.
She is survived by Suzanne, three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
• April Rosemary Cantelo, soprano, born April 2, 1928; died July 16, 2024