Anne Sharp (singer)

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Anne Smellie Graham Sharp (born October 24, 1916 in Motherwell , Lanarkshire , Scotland , † August 25, 2011 in Edinborough , Scotland) was a British opera singer ( coloratura soprano ). It is associated in particular with the operas by Benjamin Britten .

childhood and education

Anne Sharp was born in 1916 as the eighth and youngest child into a Scottish family of passionate amateur musicians. Her father worked as an engineer in the steel industry and in his spare time as an amateur singer and choir director . Sharp attended Glencairn Primary School and Dalziel High School in her hometown of Motherwell . After graduating from high school, she hired herself as a secretary and took private singing lessons.

In 1941 she finally got a place at the Scottish National Academy of Music in Glasgow (now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland ) and began studying music there. In her third year of study, she won the Jean Highgate Singing Scholarship. During her student days, which were shaped by the Second World War, she sang in the church choir of Glasgow Cathedral . In 1944 she graduated from the university, which has since been renamed the “Royal Scottish Academy of Music”, with a so-called “Performer's Diploma in Solo Singing”. Sharp moved to London and obtained two postgraduate diplomas from Trinity College London (TCL) and the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in 1946 .

In the summer of 1946, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden began to rebuild after the war, reinventing itself. As part of a large-scale recruitment campaign, new professional singers were hired in various parts of the country for the newly created permanent opera choir. From several hundred applicants, 71 future choir members were selected in numerous auditions (“auditions”). Sharp attended the Glasgow audition and was one of only seven successful Scottish applicants. A newspaper article reported:

“From among many hundreds of singers from all over the British Isles a chorus of 71 was chosen for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, London. Auditions were held in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and seven Scots qualified in the final selection. 'This is the first time in its history that the' Garden 'has kept a' resident 'chorus,' a representative of the company said. 'It is hard to know if this is a record number of Scots'. […] Blonde, petite Anne Sharp gained many singing degrees at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music. She worked for Motherwell Corporation as a shorthand typist. "

Career in London

Sharp sang in the choir of the Royal Opera House in the first post-war production, Purcell's The Fairy-Queen . Bizet's Carmen , Massenet's Manon and Mozart's Magic Flute followed in 1947 .

In March 1947 she became a founding member of Benjamin Britten's English Opera Group. The small ensemble made Britten's operas known to an international audience at the Glyndebourne Opera Festival , in Sadler's Wells , Lucerne , Scheveningen , Oslo and Copenhagen as well as their ensemble location in Aldeburgh . In her 1930s she was accepted for teenage roles without any problems, for example in 1948 she sang the role of the "annoying village girl" Emmie Spatchett in Albert Herring , the central piece of the first Aldeburgh Festival in June 1948.

Sharp developed the roles of (13-year-old) Cis Woodger in Albert Herring and Molly Brazen in Britten's adaptation of The Beggar's Opera from 1948. The character of Juliet Brook in The Little Sweep was tailor-made for her by Britten himself. In the play Let's Make an Opera! , which includes The Little Sweep , the characters were named after the original opera performers. Annie Dougall (a bank clerk) takes on the role of 14-year-old Juliet. The role was originally conceived as that of a Scottish girl. The original libretto contained a variety of Scottish expressions for the character. Britten originally envisaged the role of Polly Peachum in The Beggar's Opera for Sharp, but changed his concept of the character while the opera was being composed and made her a mezzo-soprano role. Ultimately, opera singer Nancy Evans created the role.

Between 1948 and 1950 she appeared in the live radio broadcasts Albert Herring , Let's Make an Opera! and The Beggar's Opera , broadcasts from the BBC Third Program and the BBC Home Service. In February 1950, Let's Make an Opera! broadcast live on BBC television with Anne Sharp, making it one of the first operas ever to be televised.

During this time she also appeared in soprano roles in Bach's B minor Mass , Handel's Messiah and Brahms ' Ein deutsches Requiem . There were also solo concerts for the BBC Third Program (including Handel's Lusinghe piu care and Richard Strauss ' serenade ). Her opera roles during these years include the Queen of the Night in Mozart's Magic Flute and Micaëla in a concert performance by Bizet's Carmen . Sharp developed the title role in Lawrance Collingwood's little-known opera The Death of Tintagiles for its only performance in April 1950.

Voice quality

Elisabeth Parry, a contemporary in the English Opera Group, described Sharp's singing as “[...] a lovely, natural, very high soprano voice that never seemed to cause her any problems. We kept teasing her with it in our shack, because she could climb out of bed early in the morning or lie relaxed in the bathtub and still get the high E. ”In 1950 the Totnes Times wrote about“ a charming portrayal of the Queen of the Night “In 1957, the North Star criticized her performance in Handel's Messiah as follows:

“Miss Anne Sharp, soprano, heard for the first time in Tain, made an instant appeal, as might be expected from a singer of her caliber and reputation. What was most impressive was the enviable range of her sweet voice and its great purity in the upper register. All her solos put great demand on voice control and her rendering of the classic 'I know that my Redeemer liveth' [Note: Part III, sentence 45 ] was a special joy. "

Marriage, family and last years of life

In December 1950, Sharp married Rev. James Lyon Kerr, a minister (see bishop ) of the Church of Scotland . After her wedding, she continued her operatic career sporadically in London, but with the birth of their daughter in 1953, she decided to concentrate on the family and only accepted oratorio roles in Scotland.

Sharp spent the last four years of her life with her daughter in West Linton , Peeblesshire . She died in Edinburgh on August 25, 2011 at the age of 94 .

Recordings

  • 1948: as Molly Brazen in the BBC radio ensemble of the Threepenny Opera , edited by Pearl in April 2005
  • 1949: as Emmie Spatchett in a performance by Albert Herring , recorded at the Kongelige Teater in Copenhagen , published by Nimbus in September 2008
  • 1949: BBC recording of Let's Make an Opera! , Anne Sharp in the dual roles of Anne Dougall and Juliet Brook (archive material, not for sale)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Morag Kerr: Obituary: Anne Sharp - Singer who performed at Covent Garden and had parts created for her by Benjamin Britten . In: The Scotsman . December 9, 2011. Retrieved December 9, 2011.
  2. ↑ a b c Seven Singing Scots , unattributed article in the Glasgow Evening Times , 1946 (exact date unknown).
  3. ↑ Rosenthal, Harold (1967). Opera at Covent Garden, A Short History . Victor Gollancz, London. OCLC 954921
  4. ↑ a b c d Parry, Elisabeth (2010). Thirty Men and a Girl . Allegra, pp. 225-262. ISBN 978-0-9564538-0-8 .
  5. ^ Cooke, Mervyn (1999). The Cambridge companion to Benjamin Britten . Cambridge University Press, p. 309. ISBN 0-521-57476-5 .
  6. ^ White, Eric Walter (1983). Benjamin Britten, his life and operas . University of California Press, pp. 297-298. ISBN 0-520-04894-6
  7. ↑ Crozier, Eric (1949). Let's Make an Opera! including The Little Sweep . Boosey & Hawkes, London.
  8. ↑ a b Britten-Pears Foundation. " The Little Sweep , op. 45" .
  9. ^ A b Memorable performance of "The Magic Flute" , unattributed article in the Totnes Times , November 4, 1950.
  10. ^ Lawrance Collingwood, (Conductor) . bach-cantatas.com.
  11. ↑ a b Handel’s Messiah - Tain performance , unattributed article in the North Star , April 6, 1957.
  12. ^ Britten-Pears Foundation. "Early Albert Herring recording released" . July 23, 2008
personal data
SURNAME Sharp, Anne
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Sharp, Anne Smellie Graham (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British opera singer (coloratura soprano)
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Motherwell , Lanarkshire , Scotland
DATE OF DEATH August 25, 2011
Place of death Edinborough , Scotland