Darrell Fancourt
Encyclopedia
Darrell Fancourt was an English bass-baritone
, known for his performances and recordings of the Savoy Operas
.
After a brief concert career, Fancourt joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
, where he starred in more than 10,000 performances over a 33-year period until his death. He regularly played about ten different roles for the company over these years, including the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance
, Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore
, and the title character in The Mikado
, which he played more than 3,000 times. Fancourt was famous for his melodramatic style, creating the controversial Mikado laugh that was later adopted by some of his successors. His performances are preserved in nineteen of the company's recordings made between 1923 and 1950.
, London. His father, Louis George Leverson (1860–1909), was a diamond merchant who had made a fortune in South Africa. His mother, Amelia (Amy) de Symons, née Lewis-Barned (1865–1931), was "a clever vivacious young artist of the musical comedy
type". Both were staunch friends of the arts. Fancourt was baptised into the Church of England
when he was fourteen years old.
Fancourt was educated at Bedford School
and at the Royal Academy of Music
. At the Royal Academy, he studied singing with his mother's former teacher, Sir Henry Wood
, and Alberto Randegger
, and drama with Richard Temple, creator of many of the Savoy roles in which Fancourt was later famous. While a student, Fancourt performed in opera productions at the Academy, creating the role of Tackleton, the toy merchant, in Alexander Mackenzie's opera The Cricket on the Hearth, and playing Colas in Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne
, and Benoit in La bohème
. The Times
thought him "amusing but not noticeably musical" in the last. Fancourt later continued his vocal studies in Germany with Lilli Lehmann
.
Even before completing his studies, Fancourt was building a concert career in London, the British provinces and the European continent.The Times said of an Aeolian Hall
recital in 1912, "Mr. Fancourt has some noble notes in his voice, except when he forces it occasionally ... Schubert's Tod und das Mädchen
was remarkably well characterized; it was quite his best and he made it into a thing of great beauty." In World War I
, Fancourt volunteered for military service and was commissioned in the London Regiment
as a lieutenant. In 1917, while still serving in the army, Fancourt married a young singer, Eleanor Evans
, at St Mark's Church, Hamilton Terrace, London. She had been a fellow-student at the Royal Academy. After returning to civilian life in 1919, Fancourt sang in a single performance of Prince Igor
in Sir Thomas Beecham
's opera season at Covent Garden
as Prince Galitsky under the baton of Albert Coates
. This was his only professional appearance in a grand opera
, and his only paid acting experience up to that point. In the same year, he appeared as a soloist at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts
and in oratorio
elsewhere in London.
Fancourt joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
in May 1920 to succeed Frederick Hobbs
, who had announced his decision to leave the company. Fancourt went on for Hobbs as Mountararat in Iolanthe
, Arac in Princess Ida
and the title character in The Mikado
. In June 1920, Hobbs left, and Fancourt took over the bass-baritone
roles, including the above parts, Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore
, the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance
, Colonel Calverley in Patience, Sir Roderick Murgatroyd in Ruddigore
and Sergeant Meryll in The Yeomen of the Guard
. In 1921, when Cox and Box
and The Sorcerer
were revived, Fancourt added the roles of Sergeant Bouncer and Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre to his repertoire. He also appeared as the Usher in Trial by Jury
in 1926, but he thought himself "simply bloody" in the role and soon dropped it. In 1921, his wife, Eleanor Evans, joined the company as a chorister, also playing some smaller principal soprano
roles. She was nicknamed "Snookie" in the company; and, according to fellow D'Oyly Carte performer Derek Oldham
, "she was so beautiful, was Snookie! We all fell for her, and we gave Darrell a busy time keeping us 'off'." Later in Fancourt's career, his wife was made the company's stage director and director of productions.
Opinions differed about Fancourt's melodramatic style in his roles, especially his interpretation of his best-known role, that of the Mikado of Japan, and his famous Mikado laugh. Frederic Lloyd
, who joined the D'Oyly Carte in 1951 and had studied the company's history, told an interviewer that Fancourt invented his interpretation, concerned that the earlier movements used during the Mikado's song could be taken as a Fagin
-like caricature. According to Lloyd, Fancourt had said that, because of his Jewish background, "I just couldn't go through those movements, it would bother me", and Lloyd reported that, when Fancourt showed Rupert D'Oyly Carte
and his stage director J. M. Gordon
his new business for the song, they were delighted. Jessie Bond
, who had played Pitti-Sing in the 1885 première, was unimpressed: "Who, I want to know, intended that the Mikado should prance about like a madman, hissing out his lines like a serpent? ... The raving monster we so often see now is not one bit like the suave and oily Mikado created [by Fancourt's teacher, Richard Temple] at the Savoy." The Times thought that he "undoubtedly loses a good deal of the Mikado's humour... his 'humane Mikado' scene is the one which seems to have travelled farthest from the 'Savoy tradition'." A later Times review commented more favourably: "Mr Darrell Fancourt... can (and did) add a terrifying aspect to the benignity of his humaner punishment manifesto, and left us wondering how his vocal cords ever managed to function normally after those expressions of emphasis with which he punctuated its paragraphs." The Manchester Guardian praised Fancourt's fresh approach and added, "He makes more of the punishment-fitting-the-crime song than we can remember having seen from any other actor." The Pall Mall Gazette
said, "Mr Fancourt has recognised that people can do with a 'thrill' in these Grand Guignol
days. So he has given us a Mikado who really does curdle the blood, with a voice like a steam hammer slowly crushing a ton of Brazil nuts, and a make up of ghastly villainy, and a fiendish, gurgling laugh, which must be heard to be appreciated." Another critic described the sound of Fancourt's laugh as "a dragon getting up steam". With respect to Fancourt's portrayal of the Pirate King, fellow actor Henry Lytton
told an interviewer, "The King should be a story book pirate, not a real one and blood thirsty to boot. But that's the way Mr. Fancourt plays it".
Fancourt was a cricket fan, an avid golfer and a fine bridge player and was popular among his colleagues. By the late 1940s, his health began to fail, and in 1950 he gave up the role of Mountararat. In his last year, he continued to perform although he was very ill. Fancourt received the O.B.E.
in June 1953 in the Coronation Honours
shortly after announcing his forthcoming retirement. The Illustrated London News commented, "He will be the greatest loss to professional Gilbert-and-Sullivan since Henry Lytton
retired … Besides his voice and presence, he has the priceless gift of attack. To watch him attacking The Mikado is to watch high tide flooding across the beach: it is an irresistible surge and swell." Fancourt was too ill to make his scheduled final appearance, and as a last gesture he asked a friend to take his make-up to his successor, Donald Adams
.
Fancourt died in August 1953 at the age of 67, 33 days after giving his last performance.
A photograph of Fancourt and D'Oyly Carte colleagues with the huge recording horn used in the acoustic recording process can be seen here.
Bass-baritone
A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...
, known for his performances and recordings of the Savoy Operas
Savoy opera
The Savoy Operas denote a style of comic opera that developed in Victorian England in the late 19th century, with W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan as the original and most successful practitioners. The name is derived from the Savoy Theatre, which impresario Richard D'Oyly Carte built to house...
.
After a brief concert career, Fancourt joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
, where he starred in more than 10,000 performances over a 33-year period until his death. He regularly played about ten different roles for the company over these years, including the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
, Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
, and the title character in The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
, which he played more than 3,000 times. Fancourt was famous for his melodramatic style, creating the controversial Mikado laugh that was later adopted by some of his successors. His performances are preserved in nineteen of the company's recordings made between 1923 and 1950.
Early years
Fancourt was born Darrell Louis Fancourt Leverson, the younger son of three children of a Jewish family in KensingtonKensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
, London. His father, Louis George Leverson (1860–1909), was a diamond merchant who had made a fortune in South Africa. His mother, Amelia (Amy) de Symons, née Lewis-Barned (1865–1931), was "a clever vivacious young artist of the musical comedy
Edwardian Musical Comedy
Edwardian musical comedies were British musical theatre shows from the period between the early 1890s, when the Gilbert and Sullivan operas' dominance had ended, until the rise of the American musicals by Jerome Kern, Rodgers and Hart, George Gershwin and Cole Porter following World War I.Between...
type". Both were staunch friends of the arts. Fancourt was baptised into the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
when he was fourteen years old.
Fancourt was educated at Bedford School
Bedford School
Bedford School is not to be confused with Bedford Modern School or Bedford High School or Old Bedford School in Bedford, TexasBedford School is an HMC independent school for boys located in the town of Bedford, England, United Kingdom...
and at the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
. At the Royal Academy, he studied singing with his mother's former teacher, Sir Henry Wood
Henry Wood (conductor)
Sir Henry Joseph Wood, CH was an English conductor best known for his association with London's annual series of promenade concerts, known as the Proms. He conducted them for nearly half a century, introducing hundreds of new works to British audiences...
, and Alberto Randegger
Alberto Randegger
Alberto Randegger was an Italian-born composer, conductor and singing teacher, best known for promoting opera and new works of British music in England during the Victorian era and for his widely-used textbook on singing technique.-Life and career:Randegger was born in Trieste, Italy, the son of...
, and drama with Richard Temple, creator of many of the Savoy roles in which Fancourt was later famous. While a student, Fancourt performed in opera productions at the Academy, creating the role of Tackleton, the toy merchant, in Alexander Mackenzie's opera The Cricket on the Hearth, and playing Colas in Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne
Bastien und Bastienne
Bastien und Bastienne , K. 50 is a one-act singspiel, a comic opera, by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart....
, and Benoit in La bohème
La bohème
La bohème is an opera in four acts,Puccini called the divisions quadro, a tableau or "image", rather than atto . by Giacomo Puccini to an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa, based on Scènes de la vie de bohème by Henri Murger...
. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
thought him "amusing but not noticeably musical" in the last. Fancourt later continued his vocal studies in Germany with Lilli Lehmann
Lilli Lehmann
Lilli Lehmann, born Elisabeth Maria Lehmann, later Elisabeth Maria Lehmann-Kalisch was a German operatic soprano of phenomenal versatility...
.
Aeolian Hall (London)
Aeolian Hall located at 135-137 New Bond Street, began life as the Grosvenor Gallery, being built by Sir Coutts Lindsay in 1876, an accomplished amateur artist, with a predeliction for the aesthetic movement, for which he was held up to some ridicule. In 1883, he decided to light his gallery with...
recital in 1912, "Mr. Fancourt has some noble notes in his voice, except when he forces it occasionally ... Schubert's Tod und das Mädchen
Death and the Maiden (song)
Der Tod und das Mädchen , Death and the Maiden in English, is a lied composed by Franz Schubert. The text is derived from a poem written by German poet Matthias Claudius...
was remarkably well characterized; it was quite his best and he made it into a thing of great beauty." In World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Fancourt volunteered for military service and was commissioned in the London Regiment
London Regiment
The London Regiment is a Territorial Army regiment in the British Army. It was first formed in 1908 in order to regiment the various Volunteer Force battalions in the newly formed County of London, each battalion having a distinctive uniform. The Volunteer Force was merged with the Yeomanry in 1908...
as a lieutenant. In 1917, while still serving in the army, Fancourt married a young singer, Eleanor Evans
Eleanor Evans
Eleanor Evans was a Welsh actress, singer and stage director. She performed in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas for over a span of more than 20 years with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company...
, at St Mark's Church, Hamilton Terrace, London. She had been a fellow-student at the Royal Academy. After returning to civilian life in 1919, Fancourt sang in a single performance of Prince Igor
Prince Igor
Prince Igor is an opera in four acts with a prologue. It was composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Polovtsian tribes in 1185...
in Sir Thomas Beecham
Thomas Beecham
Sir Thomas Beecham, 2nd Baronet CH was an English conductor and impresario best known for his association with the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic orchestras. He was also closely associated with the Liverpool Philharmonic and Hallé orchestras...
's opera season at Covent Garden
Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
as Prince Galitsky under the baton of Albert Coates
Albert Coates (musician)
Albert Coates was an English conductor and composer. Born in Saint Petersburg where his English father was a successful businessman, he studied in Russia, England and Germany, before beginning his career as a conductor in a series of German opera houses...
. This was his only professional appearance in a grand opera
Grand Opera
Grand opera is a genre of 19th-century opera generally in four or five acts, characterised by large-scale casts and orchestras, and lavish and spectacular design and stage effects, normally with plots based on or around dramatic historic events...
, and his only paid acting experience up to that point. In the same year, he appeared as a soloist at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts
The Proms
The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily orchestral classical music concerts and other events held annually, predominantly in the Royal Albert Hall in London...
and in oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
elsewhere in London.
Fancourt joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
The D'Oyly Carte Opera Company was a professional light opera company that staged Gilbert and Sullivan's Savoy operas. The company performed nearly year-round in the UK and sometimes toured in Europe, North America and elsewhere, from the 1870s until it closed in 1982. It was revived in 1988 and...
in May 1920 to succeed Frederick Hobbs
Frederick Hobbs (singer)
Frederick Hobbs was a New Zealand-born singer, actor and theatre manager. After performing as a concert singer in New Zealand and Australia and in opera and musicals in Britain, he joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1914. There he played the baritone and bass-baritone roles of the Gilbert...
, who had announced his decision to leave the company. Fancourt went on for Hobbs as Mountararat in Iolanthe
Iolanthe
Iolanthe; or, The Peer and the Peri is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy operas and is the seventh collaboration of the fourteen between Gilbert and Sullivan....
, Arac in Princess Ida
Princess Ida
Princess Ida; or, Castle Adamant is a comic opera with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was their eighth operatic collaboration of fourteen. Princess Ida opened at the Savoy Theatre on January 5, 1884, for a run of 246 performances...
and the title character in The Mikado
The Mikado
The Mikado; or, The Town of Titipu is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert, their ninth of fourteen operatic collaborations...
. In June 1920, Hobbs left, and Fancourt took over the bass-baritone
Bass-baritone
A bass-baritone is a high-lying bass or low-lying "classical" baritone voice type which shares certain qualities with the true baritone voice. The term arose in the late 19th century to describe the particular type of voice required to sing three Wagnerian roles: the Dutchman in Der fliegende...
roles, including the above parts, Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore
H.M.S. Pinafore; or, The Lass That Loved a Sailor is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and a libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It opened at the Opera Comique in London, England, on 25 May 1878 and ran for 571 performances, which was the second-longest run of any musical...
, the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance
The Pirates of Penzance; or, The Slave of Duty is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. The opera's official premiere was at the Fifth Avenue Theatre in New York City on 31 December 1879, where the show was well received by both audiences...
, Colonel Calverley in Patience, Sir Roderick Murgatroyd in Ruddigore
Ruddigore
Ruddigore; or, The Witch's Curse, originally called Ruddygore, is a comic opera in two acts, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It is one of the Savoy Operas and the tenth of fourteen comic operas written together by Gilbert and Sullivan...
and Sergeant Meryll in The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard
The Yeomen of the Guard; or, The Merryman and His Maid, is a Savoy Opera, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It premiered at the Savoy Theatre on 3 October 1888, and ran for 423 performances...
. In 1921, when Cox and Box
Cox and Box
Cox and Box; or, The Long-Lost Brothers, is a one-act comic opera with a libretto by F. C. Burnand and music by Arthur Sullivan, based on the 1847 farce Box and Cox by John Maddison Morton. It was Sullivan's first successful comic opera. The story concerns a landlord who lets a room to two...
and The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer
The Sorcerer is a two-act comic opera, with a libretto by W. S. Gilbert and music by Arthur Sullivan. It was the British duo's third operatic collaboration. The plot of The Sorcerer is based on a Christmas story, An Elixir of Love, that Gilbert wrote for The Graphic magazine in 1876...
were revived, Fancourt added the roles of Sergeant Bouncer and Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre to his repertoire. He also appeared as the Usher in Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury
Trial by Jury is a comic opera in one act, with music by Arthur Sullivan and libretto by W. S. Gilbert. It was first produced on 25 March 1875, at London's Royalty Theatre, where it initially ran for 131 performances and was considered a hit, receiving critical praise and outrunning its...
in 1926, but he thought himself "simply bloody" in the role and soon dropped it. In 1921, his wife, Eleanor Evans, joined the company as a chorister, also playing some smaller principal soprano
Soprano
A soprano is a voice type with a vocal range from approximately middle C to "high A" in choral music, or to "soprano C" or higher in operatic music. In four-part chorale style harmony, the soprano takes the highest part, which usually encompasses the melody...
roles. She was nicknamed "Snookie" in the company; and, according to fellow D'Oyly Carte performer Derek Oldham
Derek Oldham
Derek Oldham was an English singer and actor, best known for his performances in the tenor roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company....
, "she was so beautiful, was Snookie! We all fell for her, and we gave Darrell a busy time keeping us 'off'." Later in Fancourt's career, his wife was made the company's stage director and director of productions.
Later years
Fancourt continued to play most of the principal bass-baritone roles for D'Oyly Carte until 1953. The company performed almost year-round in repertory during these 33 years, and Fancourt appeared in well over 10,000 performances; he played the title role in The Mikado more than 3,000 times. Over the years, he performed with the company on seven tours in North America. Known for his excellent diction and vocal technique, Fancourt was an audience favourite during his long tenure. "Not only does he possess a velvety resonant bass tone but also has a relaxed vibrato that is particularly elegant." J. C. Trewin called Fancourt "the lord of Gilbert-and-Sullivan playing. ... Fancourt is both a fine singer and, within the Savoy convention, a fine and zestful actor with the gift of a dominating personality. Roderic's song 'When the night wind howls', as Fancourt sings it in the second act of Ruddigore, is at the meridian of that opera and one of the glories of Gilbert-and-Sullivan in the contemporary theatre." The Times later said, "nobody who heard it will ever forget his singing of 'When the night wind howls'."Opinions differed about Fancourt's melodramatic style in his roles, especially his interpretation of his best-known role, that of the Mikado of Japan, and his famous Mikado laugh. Frederic Lloyd
Frederic Lloyd
Frederic Lloyd, OBE , was an English theatre manager. Most notably, Lloyd was the General Manager of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1951 until its closure in 1982.-Biography:...
, who joined the D'Oyly Carte in 1951 and had studied the company's history, told an interviewer that Fancourt invented his interpretation, concerned that the earlier movements used during the Mikado's song could be taken as a Fagin
Fagin
Fagin is a fictional character who appears as an antagonist of the Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist, referred to in the preface of the novel as a "receiver of stolen goods", but referred to more frequently within the actual story as the "merry old gentleman" or simply the "Jew".-Character:Born...
-like caricature. According to Lloyd, Fancourt had said that, because of his Jewish background, "I just couldn't go through those movements, it would bother me", and Lloyd reported that, when Fancourt showed Rupert D'Oyly Carte
Rupert D'Oyly Carte
Rupert D'Oyly Carte was an English hotelier, theatre owner and impresario, best known as proprietor of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Savoy Hotel from 1913 to 1948....
and his stage director J. M. Gordon
J. M. Gordon
J. M. Gordon, was an English singer, actor, stage manager and director, best known as the influential long-time director of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company following the death of W. S. Gilbert.-Life and career:...
his new business for the song, they were delighted. Jessie Bond
Jessie Bond
Jessie Bond was an English singer and actress best known for creating the mezzo-soprano soubrette roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas. She spent twenty years on the stage, the bulk of them with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.Musical from an early age, Bond began a concert singing...
, who had played Pitti-Sing in the 1885 première, was unimpressed: "Who, I want to know, intended that the Mikado should prance about like a madman, hissing out his lines like a serpent? ... The raving monster we so often see now is not one bit like the suave and oily Mikado created [by Fancourt's teacher, Richard Temple] at the Savoy." The Times thought that he "undoubtedly loses a good deal of the Mikado's humour... his 'humane Mikado' scene is the one which seems to have travelled farthest from the 'Savoy tradition'." A later Times review commented more favourably: "Mr Darrell Fancourt... can (and did) add a terrifying aspect to the benignity of his humaner punishment manifesto, and left us wondering how his vocal cords ever managed to function normally after those expressions of emphasis with which he punctuated its paragraphs." The Manchester Guardian praised Fancourt's fresh approach and added, "He makes more of the punishment-fitting-the-crime song than we can remember having seen from any other actor." The Pall Mall Gazette
Pall Mall Gazette
The Pall Mall Gazette was an evening newspaper founded in London on 7 February 1865 by George Murray Smith; its first editor was Frederick Greenwood...
said, "Mr Fancourt has recognised that people can do with a 'thrill' in these Grand Guignol
Grand Guignol
Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol — known as the Grand Guignol — was a theatre in the Pigalle area of Paris . From its opening in 1897 until its closing in 1962 it specialized in naturalistic horror shows...
days. So he has given us a Mikado who really does curdle the blood, with a voice like a steam hammer slowly crushing a ton of Brazil nuts, and a make up of ghastly villainy, and a fiendish, gurgling laugh, which must be heard to be appreciated." Another critic described the sound of Fancourt's laugh as "a dragon getting up steam". With respect to Fancourt's portrayal of the Pirate King, fellow actor Henry Lytton
Henry Lytton
Sir Henry Lytton was an English actor and singer who was the leading exponent of the comic patter-baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas in the early part of the twentieth century...
told an interviewer, "The King should be a story book pirate, not a real one and blood thirsty to boot. But that's the way Mr. Fancourt plays it".
Fancourt was a cricket fan, an avid golfer and a fine bridge player and was popular among his colleagues. By the late 1940s, his health began to fail, and in 1950 he gave up the role of Mountararat. In his last year, he continued to perform although he was very ill. Fancourt received the O.B.E.
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
in June 1953 in the Coronation Honours
British honours system
The British honours system is a means of rewarding individuals' personal bravery, achievement, or service to the United Kingdom and the British Overseas Territories...
shortly after announcing his forthcoming retirement. The Illustrated London News commented, "He will be the greatest loss to professional Gilbert-and-Sullivan since Henry Lytton
Henry Lytton
Sir Henry Lytton was an English actor and singer who was the leading exponent of the comic patter-baritone roles in Gilbert and Sullivan operas in the early part of the twentieth century...
retired … Besides his voice and presence, he has the priceless gift of attack. To watch him attacking The Mikado is to watch high tide flooding across the beach: it is an irresistible surge and swell." Fancourt was too ill to make his scheduled final appearance, and as a last gesture he asked a friend to take his make-up to his successor, Donald Adams
Donald Adams
Charles Donald Adams was an English opera singer and actor, best known for his performances in bass-baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and his own company, Gilbert and Sullivan for All.Adams began his career with the BBC Repertory Company in 1944...
.
Fancourt died in August 1953 at the age of 67, 33 days after giving his last performance.
Recordings
Fancourt participated in nineteen D'Oyly Carte recordings between 1923 and 1950 in the following roles: Mountararat (1922, shared with Peter Dawson, and 1930), Dick Deadeye (1922, shared with Frederick Hobbs, 1930 and 1949), Sir Roderic (1924, 1931 and 1950), Arac (1925 and 1932), Colonel Calverley (1930 and 1952), Sir Marmaduke in an abridged Sorcerer (1933), the Mikado (1926, 1936 and 1950), the Pirate King (1931 abridged set and 1950), and Sergeant Meryll (1950). He also sang the title role in a 1926 BBC radio broadcast of The Mikado and appeared in a four-minute silent promotional film made of the D'Oyly Carte Mikado in 1926.A photograph of Fancourt and D'Oyly Carte colleagues with the huge recording horn used in the acoustic recording process can be seen here.
External links
- Photo of Fancourt in The Mikado in 1926
- Photos of Fancourt as Deadeye in 1926 and 1934
- Fancourt as the Pirate King in 1939
- Photo of Fancourt as Sgt. Bouncer
- Photo of Fancourt as Sir Roderic in 1926
- Another photo as Sir Roderic
- Postcards, including several of Fancourt in various roles
- More postcards showing Fancourt
- More postcards with Fancourt
- Darrell Fancourt at the IBDB database