by April Cantelo, who has died aged 96, was a gifted and versatile English soprano with a clear silvery voice who rose from the Glyndebourne chorus and created the role of Helena in Benjamin Britten’s musical A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Aldeburgh Festival in June 1960; after that she took a special place in the hearts of the nation’s young singers, training the different generations in techniques, guiding their repertoire and encouraging their ambitions with helpful but honest advice.
Tall and majestic, April praised Cantelo for her interpretation of music both old and new. She sang Xantippe in the British premiere of Telemann’s Der guldigere Socrates for Kent Opera, conducted by Roger Norrington, in 1974, and Manon Lescaut in the British premiere of Hans Werner Henze’s Boulevard Solitude with the New Opera Company in 1962. also an excellent account of Jenny in the British premiere of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogony (1963), and appeared in the world premiere in 1964 of Edith Sitwell’s adaptation of Malcolm Williamson’s English Eccentrics.
She made something of a difference to Williamson’s operas, appearing as Beatrice Weston in Graham Greene’s story Our Man in Havana (1963); Berthe in his lushly romantic The Violins of Saint-Jacques (1966), based on the book by Patrick Leigh-Fermor; and Swallow in the recording of his children’s musical The Happy Prince (1965) after the story by Oscar Wilde. Although Williamson’s “pop opera” approach was criticized by many, the way he wrote it was memorable for particular singers. “The harmonic quality of his melodies brings out the best in the human voice,” she told the Daily Telegraph in 1975.
Like many singers, April Cantelo found the audience’s coughing to be a distraction, saying that the fear of people coughing often made them cough more. Her advice to those suffering from it was to slip out of the hall quietly, but if that was not possible she suggested a simple trick: “Breathe in quietly through the nose and then out, counting to 10: it takes away that nervous feeling.”
April Rosemary Cantelo was born in Purbrook, Hampshire, on 2 April 1928, the daughter of Herbert Cantelo, an amateur cellist, and his wife Marie (née Abraham). Educated at Chelmsford Girls School, she sang Bach arias with the Chelmsford Festival Orchestra in 1947 and took piano lessons at the Royal College of Music in London.
Her early ambition was to be a “research scientist – a kind of medicine”, she told the Oakland Tribune in 1971. She played piano and sang in the church choir, but when someone suggested she attend singing audition she thought “it was a big joke.” thing”.
The audition was for Dartington Hall, a small arts college in Devon. “I was given six months with them and a lot of education, as well as the opportunity to go back to scientific research if I didn’t like singing,” she said. Needless to say, she never returned – but, she said, “sometimes I looked back and thought… This is a strange life, an extension of ‘let’s go’, and it’s a long, hard grind up.”
April Cantelo’s vocal talents were soon evident and she joined the National Opera Studio studying with Vilem Tausky. Her other teachers included Joan Cross and Imogen Holst, who also remembered her as an excellent viola player. On one occasion there was a lot of strange noise going on behind her head during an orchestra practice, “and without stopping, she turned around to see what it was, while still continuing to play,” writes Imogen Holst.
By 1948 April Cantelo was appearing with the New English Singers, the Deller Consort and the Glyndebourne Festival Chorus. In the Glyndebourne orchestra that summer was the clarinetist and future conductor Colin Davis. They were married the following year, although she was the main breadwinner during what he called his early “amateur wilderness”.
“My career started before his life, because I was a young singer and there are more opportunities for a young singer than a young director,” she told the Daily Mail. “So he had to do his share of the childcare, which must have been frustrating.”
Davis didn’t always help himself. Friends recalled how he once accompanied her to practice, where he sat and picked at his shoe during the time. His struggle progressed, for him at least, when in 1957 he was offered the position of assistant conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.
April Cantelo made her solo debut with the Glyndebourne company at the 1950 Edinburgh Festival as Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos, singing Strauss’s little arietta at the beginning of the piece with great surprise, and as Barbarina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro. The following year she appeared, again as Barbarina, on the Sussex stage. In 1953 she echoed there again and sang Blonde in Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail.
By then she had made her first appearance at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with a small role in The Magic Flute directed by John Pritchard. She had also made her debut at the Aldeburgh Festival, playing the delightful Rosetta in Arthur Oldham’s adaptation of Thomas Arne’s 18th century pastiche Love in a Village for the English Opera Group.
Her first appearance at the Proms was in the premiere of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in 1958 conducted by Basil Cameron. She returned to the Royal Albert Hall a further nine times until 1973, singing in works such as Vaughan Williams’ Pastoral Symphony, Berlioz’s Les nuits d’été and a concert arrangement of Williamson’s Our Man in Havana. In 1967 she took part in the inaugural concert of the Purcell Room at the South Bank Centre, performing for the Apollo Society with Raymond Leppard and Robert Tear in a program aptly titled “Homage to Henry Purcell”.
During the 1970s April Cantelo’s career took her to Australia, often appearing in Williamson’s musicals. She was also a visiting lecturer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand and in 1972 she directed Purcell’s The Fairy Queen which was staged there.
April Cantelo slipped quietly off the stage, and in 1979 he formed the Highnam Court Project with director Roger Smith. Their plan was to turn the 17th century mansion in Gloucestershire, once in the family of composer Hubert Parry, into a foundation for the arts. Weekend operas were held there and in 1981 their restoration work featured in an ATV documentary.
She settled in Oxfordshire, transforming the amateur village of All Saints Singers at Sutton Courtenay, near Abingdon, into a professional-sounding chorus. She even bribed some of her professional colleagues to join the Singers as soloists in Haydn’s Masses, Bach’s passions and Telemann’s oratorios.
Three years ago Ruth Swain painted her portrait, wearing a pink woolen hat and heavy beige coat, a walking stick in each of her gloved hands. The artist suggested giving him the title Soprano; April Cantelo replied: “It’s better to call him Mary with two sticks.”
April Cantelo’s marriage to Davis dissolved in 1964 after he began an affair with Ashraf Naini, known as Shamsi, her children’s Iranian au pair, whom he later married. He died in 2013. They had a daughter and a son.
April Cantelo, born 2 April 1928, died 16 July 2024
