Some of the U.K.'s most admired opera professionals have signed on for a tribute to the late, much loved bass Richard Angas. Opera North has organized the one-off concert, which will take place on February 16 at Leeds Grand Theatre.
The great soprano Dame Josephine Barstow, talking to BBC Radio 3 earlier this week, was unstinting in her praise of the larger-than-life Angas, especially of his superb diction and his popularity in every company he worked with.
Phyllida Lloyd and Jo Davies will direct. And the singers line-up will include Susan Bullock, Lesley Garrett, Jean Rigby, Richard Berkeley-Steele, Richard Suart, Dame Felicity Palmer, Bonaventura Bottone, Yvonne Howard, Robert Hayward, Janis Kelly, Giselle Allen, John Graham Hall and others.
Conductors include David Lloyd-Jones (former Opera North music director), Richard Farnes (current music director), James Holmes and Wyn Davies.
And there will be excerpts from The Mikado, The Cunning Little Vixen, Love For Three Oranges, Peter Grimes and more.
Proceeds will go to charitable causes.
Incidentally, an interesting digression by Barstow (one of the finest singing actresses England has ever produced) in the BBC interview revealed that her voice never, as most singers' do, lowered with age. Yet, most parts for singers of her time of life are, as she put it wittily, "for bass-baritones."
Not to worry, she has, she said, learned to fake it.
