James Milligan

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James Milligan (born April 5, 1928 in Halifax / Nova Scotia , † November 28, 1961 in Basel ) was a Canadian singer ( bass baritone ).

Milligan studied from 1948 to 1955 at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto with Emmy Heim and Leslie Holmes and performed in the Toronto area as a concert and oratorio singer. In 1951 he was one of the two winners of the Nos Futures Étoiles singing competition . During this time he appeared several times with Louis Marshall and Jon Vickers as well as with the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (including the title role of Elias and Christ in the St. Matthew Passion and in 1954 in the Messiah at Carnegie Hall ). In 1954 he won the Singing Stars of Tomorrow radio competition .

In the 1950s he earned a reputation as a dramatic baritone first in performances at the Opera School of the Royal Conservatory, then the Canadian Opera Company . He sang Marcello in La Bohème , Monterone in Rigoletto and Cancian in School for Fathers (1954), Father Germont in La Traviata (1955) and Don Carlo in La forza del destino (1959).

In 1957 he won first prize at the International Music Interpreter Competition in Geneva and then completed his training with Roy Henderson in London. There he became aware of the conductor Malcolm Sargent , under whose direction he appeared in La damnation de Faust , The Dream of Gerontius , Gabriel Fauré's Requiem and William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast . He also participated in several recordings of operettas by Gilbert and Sullivan under the direction of Sargent.

At the Covent Garden Opera he sang Escamillo in Carmen and Don Carlo in La forza del destino . At the Bayreuth Festival in 1961 he made an extremely successful debut as Wanderer in the opera Siegfried alongside Birgit Nilsson and Hans Hopf . A few months later he died unexpectedly of a heart attack during a rehearsal in Basel.

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personal data
SURNAME Milligan, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian singer
DATE OF BIRTH April 5, 1928
PLACE OF BIRTH Halifax (Nova Scotia)
DATE OF DEATH November 28, 1961
Place of death Basel