Elizabeth Harwood
Encyclopedia
Elizabeth Harwood was an English lyric soprano
. After a music school, she enjoyed an operatic career lasting for over two decades and worked with such conductors as Colin Davis
and Herbert von Karajan
. She was one of the few English singers of her generation to be invited to sing in productions at the Salzburg Festival
and La Scala
, Milan
, as well as at the Metropolitan Opera
.
After early performances at Glyndebourne
and five years at Sadler's Wells Opera Company
in the 1960s, Harwood sang at Covent Garden
and Scottish Opera
before building an international reputation in the 1970s. Her repertoire was extensive, but she was particularly notable for her performances in the operas of Mozart and Richard Strauss
. In the concert hall, she performed in oratorio
, and in her later years she concentrated on Lieder recitals.
She died of cancer at the age of 52.
, a suburb of Kettering
, but grew up in Yorkshire
. She attended Skipton Girls' High School
. Her parents were both musical, and her mother, a professional soprano
, taught her singing. Harwood later said of her childhood, "My mother sang under the name Constance Read, and she did quite a bit of early broadcasting from Birmingham
. When she had her children – there were three of us – she did local singing and took up her teaching. My father, in the Methodist Chapel tradition, did a good deal of conducting". Harwood continued her studies at the Royal Manchester College of Music
from 1956. In 1957, for the Buxton
Opera Group, she sang Michaela in Passion Flower, an adaptation of Carmen
. In a student production of Massenet's Werther
in 1958, she won praise as Sophie. At the age of 21, she won the Kathleen Ferrier
Memorial Scholarship and spent a year in Milan
studying with Lina Pagliughi
. She was later a joint winner of the international Verdi competition in Busseto
.
at Glyndebourne
in 1960. The critic of The Guardian
wrote of an early performance by Harwood, "[her] voice, though not very big, is a real Mozart voice alive with an easy sensuousness that is rare among English sopranos." At a performance of Messiah in December 1960, Harwood's fellow soloists included Janet Baker
, with whom she later made a series of critically praised appearances for Scottish Opera
.
In 1961 Sadler's Wells Opera Company
engaged her, and she played Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto
, Countess Adèle in Rossini's Le Comte Ory
, and Phyllis in Gilbert and Sullivan
's Iolanthe
, in which the critic of The Gilbert and Sullivan Journal thought that "despite Elizabeth Harwood's beautiful singing, attractive costume and appearance, her spoken word was charged with innuendo, presenting a most worldly young lady". Her other early roles at Sadler's Wells included Mozart's Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro
and Constanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail
, the title role in Massenet's Manon
and of Richard Strauss
's coloratura parts, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos
and the Fiakermilli in Arabella
. Of this period The Times
said, "Here Colin Davis
was one of the leading influences on a soprano who looked well on stage and sang with a sense of fun."
In 1965 Harwood took a break from Sadler's Wells, and toured Australia with the Sutherland Williamson Grand Opera Company, alternating with Joan Sutherland
as the title character in Lucia di Lammermoor
and Amina in La sonnambula
. After her return, Colin Davis left Sadler's Wells, and Harwood thought it time to move on. She joined the English Opera Group, singing Galatea in Acis and Galatea in Sweden, Versailles
and at the Aldeburgh Festival
. She made her Covent Garden
début as the Fiakermilli in 1967, which she followed with other coloratura parts, such as Gilda, both of which she had sung in English at Sadler's Wells. She rarely sang in modern operas, but an exception was as Bella in Michael Tippett
's The Midsummer Marriage
, where "her radiant stage appearance was seen to good effect in the high lyrical role". Davis again was the conductor, and Harwood later made one of her biggest successes when appearing under his baton as Teresa in Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini
. Her other Covent Garden roles included Oscar in Un ballo in maschera
, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni
, Norina in Don Pasquale
, and the title roles in Arabella
and Manon
.
For Scottish Opera
, between 1967 and 1974, she sang Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor and Fiordiligi in Così fan Tutte
to the Dorabella of Janet Baker
, as well as Sophie to Baker's Oktavian in Der Rosenkavalier
. In 1967, Harwood had played Donna Elvira in the Aix-en-Provence
Festival's production of Don Giovanni. She was invited back in 1969 for Acis and Galatea. Her success in this and in her Scottish Opera roles attracted the attention of Herbert von Karajan
, who invited her to appear at the Salzburg Festival
the following year. There she played Fiordiligi and Constanze, and two years later Karajan cast her as the Countess in his Salzburg production of The Marriage of Figaro. He invited her to play roles at several more Salzburg Festivals. She made her début at La Scala
, Milan, as Constanze in 1971 and played other roles there in 1972. Her début at the Metropolitan Opera
, New York, was in 1975 as Fiordiligi. For Glyndebourne, Harwood played Fiordiligi, Countess Almaviva, and, in 1982, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. Her last operatic performance was in 1983 in La colombe
at Sadlers' Wells.
and the Wigmore Hall
than at Covent Garden". One of her later appearances was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1986, in a programme including Schubert
Lieder. Her final public performance was in November 1989 at the Bath Festival
.
In 1966, she married the businessman Julian A. C. Royle, a publisher of greetings cards. They had one son, Nicholas.
Harwood died at her home in Fryerning
, Essex
, England in 1990, aged 52, from cancer. The Musical Times
wrote of her,
Janet Baker said this about Harwood: "Elizabeth was the most beloved of my colleagues, a beautiful person in every way. Her art lit up the stage." The Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Award for Singers is given every year by the Royal Northern College of Music
.
discs, beginning with an abbreviated The Mikado
recorded in Hamburg
in 1961 along with other selections for World Record Club discs. She was a guest artist for Decca
with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company
in 1964 as Elsie in The Yeomen of the Guard
and in the title role in Princess Ida
. Under the baton of Karajan, she recorded the title role of The Merry Widow
for Deutsche Grammophon
, and Musetta in La bohème
for Decca. In Benjamin Britten
's recording of his A Midsummer Night's Dream
, she sang Tytania. Her other opera recordings include Delius
's A Village Romeo and Juliet
. A video recording of Harwood as Violetta in La traviata
was issued in 1999.
In oratorio
, Harwood was able to perform in both the traditional big-scale Handel
ian style and the emerging smaller-scale "period performance" style, recording the soprano part in Messiah for both Sir Malcolm Sargent
, a traditionalist, and Charles Mackerras
, whose 1967 recording was a landmark in period performance.
Lyric soprano
A lyric soprano is a type of operatic soprano that has a warm quality with a bright, full timbre which can be heard over an orchestra. The lyric soprano voice generally has a higher tessitura than a soubrette and usually plays ingenues and other sympathetic characters in opera. Lyric sopranos have...
. After a music school, she enjoyed an operatic career lasting for over two decades and worked with such conductors as Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE is an English conductor. His repertoire is broad, but among the composers with whom he is particularly associated are Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett....
and Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
. She was one of the few English singers of her generation to be invited to sing in productions at the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
and La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, as well as at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
.
After early performances at Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an English opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.-History:...
and five years at Sadler's Wells Opera Company
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
in the 1960s, Harwood sang 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...
and Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...
before building an international reputation in the 1970s. Her repertoire was extensive, but she was particularly notable for her performances in the operas of Mozart and Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
. In the concert hall, she performed 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...
, and in her later years she concentrated on Lieder recitals.
She died of cancer at the age of 52.
Early years
Harwood was born in Barton SeagraveBarton Seagrave
Barton Seagrave is a village and civil parish in the Kettering borough of Northamptonshire, England. The Domesday Book records the village name as Bertone. The village is a suburb of Kettering and about south-east of the town centre...
, a suburb of Kettering
Kettering
Kettering is a market town in the Borough of Kettering, Northamptonshire, England. It is situated about from London. Kettering is mainly situated on the west side of the River Ise, a tributary of the River Nene which meets at Wellingborough...
, but grew up in Yorkshire
Yorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
. She attended Skipton Girls' High School
Skipton Girls' High School
Skipton Girls' High School, founded in 1886 by the Petyt Trust, is an all girls selective grammar school situated in Skipton, North Yorkshire, England. The school recently became a foundation school. Around 800 girls aged 11 to 18 are educated at the school, of which 190 are in the sixth form. The...
. Her parents were both musical, and her mother, a professional 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...
, taught her singing. Harwood later said of her childhood, "My mother sang under the name Constance Read, and she did quite a bit of early broadcasting from Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
. When she had her children – there were three of us – she did local singing and took up her teaching. My father, in the Methodist Chapel tradition, did a good deal of conducting". Harwood continued her studies at the Royal Manchester College of Music
Royal Northern College of Music
The Royal Northern College of Music is a music school in Manchester, England. It is located on Oxford Road in Chorlton on Medlock, at the western edge of the campus of the University of Manchester and is one of four conservatories associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music...
from 1956. In 1957, for the Buxton
Buxton
Buxton is a spa town in Derbyshire, England. It has the highest elevation of any market town in England. Located close to the county boundary with Cheshire to the west and Staffordshire to the south, Buxton is described as "the gateway to the Peak District National Park"...
Opera Group, she sang Michaela in Passion Flower, an adaptation of Carmen
Carmen
Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies by Alexander Pushkin...
. In a student production of Massenet's Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....
in 1958, she won praise as Sophie. At the age of 21, she won the Kathleen Ferrier
Kathleen Ferrier
Kathleen Mary Ferrier CBE was an English contralto who achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist, with a repertoire extending from folksong and popular ballads to the classical works of Bach, Brahms, Mahler and Elgar...
Memorial Scholarship and spent a year in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
studying with Lina Pagliughi
Lina Pagliughi
Lina Pagliughi was an Italian-American opera singer. Based in Italy for the majority of her career, she made a number of recordings and established herself as one of the world's finest lyric coloratura sopranos of the 1930s and '40s.-Career:Pagliughi was born in Brooklyn, New York, to Italian...
. She was later a joint winner of the international Verdi competition in Busseto
Busseto
Busseto is a comune in the province of Parma, in Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy. It was the capital of Stato Pallavicino. Opera composer Giuseppe Verdi was born in the nearby village of Le Roncole and he moved there in 1824...
.
Operatic career
Harwood made her professional début as Second Boy in The Magic FluteThe Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is an opera in two acts composed in 1791 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to a German libretto by Emanuel Schikaneder. The work is in the form of a Singspiel, a popular form that included both singing and spoken dialogue....
at Glyndebourne
Glyndebourne Festival Opera
Glyndebourne Festival Opera is an English opera festival held at Glyndebourne, an English country house near Lewes, in East Sussex, England.-History:...
in 1960. The critic of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
wrote of an early performance by Harwood, "[her] voice, though not very big, is a real Mozart voice alive with an easy sensuousness that is rare among English sopranos." At a performance of Messiah in December 1960, Harwood's fellow soloists included Janet Baker
Janet Baker
Dame Janet Abbott Baker, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.She was particularly closely associated with baroque and early Italian opera and the works of Benjamin Britten...
, with whom she later made a series of critically praised appearances for Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...
.
In 1961 Sadler's Wells Opera Company
English National Opera
English National Opera is an opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St. Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with the Royal Opera, Covent Garden...
engaged her, and she played Gilda in Verdi's Rigoletto
Rigoletto
Rigoletto is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi. The Italian libretto was written by Francesco Maria Piave based on the play Le roi s'amuse by Victor Hugo. It was first performed at La Fenice in Venice on March 11, 1851...
, Countess Adèle in Rossini's Le Comte Ory
Le comte Ory
Le comte Ory is an opéra written by Gioachino Rossini in 1828. Some of the music originates from his opera Il viaggio a Reims written three years earlier for the coronation of Charles X...
, and Phyllis in Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
's 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....
, in which the critic of The Gilbert and Sullivan Journal thought that "despite Elizabeth Harwood's beautiful singing, attractive costume and appearance, her spoken word was charged with innuendo, presenting a most worldly young lady". Her other early roles at Sadler's Wells included Mozart's Countess Almaviva in The Marriage of Figaro
The Marriage of Figaro
Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...
and Constanze in Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail
Die Entführung aus dem Serail is an opera Singspiel in three acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The German libretto is by Christoph Friedrich Bretzner with adaptations by Gottlieb Stephanie...
, the title role in Massenet's Manon
Manon
Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...
and of Richard Strauss
Richard Strauss
Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...
's coloratura parts, Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos
Ariadne auf Naxos is an opera by Richard Strauss with a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Bringing together slapstick comedy and consuming beautiful music, the opera's theme is the competition between high and low art for the public's attention.- First version :The opera was originally...
and the Fiakermilli in Arabella
Arabella
Arabella is a lyric comedy or opera in 3 acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. It was first performed on 1 July 1933, at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater....
. Of this period 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...
said, "Here Colin Davis
Colin Davis
Sir Colin Rex Davis, CH, CBE is an English conductor. His repertoire is broad, but among the composers with whom he is particularly associated are Mozart, Berlioz, Elgar, Sibelius, Stravinsky and Tippett....
was one of the leading influences on a soprano who looked well on stage and sang with a sense of fun."
In 1965 Harwood took a break from Sadler's Wells, and toured Australia with the Sutherland Williamson Grand Opera Company, alternating with Joan Sutherland
Joan Sutherland
Dame Joan Alston Sutherland, OM, AC, DBE was an Australian dramatic coloratura soprano noted for her contribution to the renaissance of the bel canto repertoire from the late 1950s through to the 1980s....
as the title character in Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor
Lucia di Lammermoor is a dramma tragico in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. Salvadore Cammarano wrote the Italian language libretto loosely based upon Sir Walter Scott's historical novel The Bride of Lammermoor....
and Amina in La sonnambula
La sonnambula
La sonnambula is an opera semiseria in two acts, with music in the bel canto tradition by Vincenzo Bellini to an Italian libretto by Felice Romani, based on a scenario for a ballet-pantomime by Eugène Scribe and Jean-Pierre Aumer called La somnambule, ou L'arrivée d'un nouveau seigneur.The first...
. After her return, Colin Davis left Sadler's Wells, and Harwood thought it time to move on. She joined the English Opera Group, singing Galatea in Acis and Galatea in Sweden, Versailles
Versailles
Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...
and at the Aldeburgh Festival
Aldeburgh Festival
The Aldeburgh Festival is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on the main concert hall at Snape Maltings...
. She made her 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...
début as the Fiakermilli in 1967, which she followed with other coloratura parts, such as Gilda, both of which she had sung in English at Sadler's Wells. She rarely sang in modern operas, but an exception was as Bella in Michael Tippett
Michael Tippett
Sir Michael Kemp Tippett OM CH CBE was an English composer.In his long career he produced a large body of work, including five operas, three large-scale choral works, four symphonies, five string quartets, four piano sonatas, concertos and concertante works, song cycles and incidental music...
's The Midsummer Marriage
The Midsummer Marriage
The Midsummer Marriage is an opera in three acts, with music and libretto by Michael Tippett. The work's first performance was at Covent Garden, 27 January 1955, conducted by John Pritchard...
, where "her radiant stage appearance was seen to good effect in the high lyrical role". Davis again was the conductor, and Harwood later made one of her biggest successes when appearing under his baton as Teresa in Berlioz's Benvenuto Cellini
Benvenuto Cellini (opera)
Benvenuto Cellini is an opera in two acts with music by Hector Berlioz and libretto by Léon de Wailly and Henri Auguste Barbier. It was the first of Berlioz's operas. The story is loosely based on the memoirs of the Florentine sculptor Benvenuto Cellini. The opera is technically very challenging...
. Her other Covent Garden roles included Oscar in Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera
Un ballo in maschera , is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi with text by Antonio Somma. The libretto is loosely based on an 1833 play, Gustave III, by French playwright Eugène Scribe who wrote about the historical assassination of King Gustav III of Sweden...
, Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
, Norina in Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale
Don Pasquale is an opera buffa, or comic opera, in three acts by Gaetano Donizetti. The librettist Giovanni Ruffini wrote the Italian language libretto after Angelo Anelli's libretto for Stefano Pavesi's Ser Marcantonio ....
, and the title roles in Arabella
Arabella
Arabella is a lyric comedy or opera in 3 acts by Richard Strauss to a German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal, their sixth and last operatic collaboration. It was first performed on 1 July 1933, at the Dresden Sächsisches Staatstheater....
and Manon
Manon
Manon is an opéra comique in five acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Henri Meilhac and Philippe Gille, based on the 1731 novel L’histoire du chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut by the Abbé Prévost...
.
For Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera
Scottish Opera is the national opera company of Scotland, and one of the five national performing arts companies funded by the Scottish Government...
, between 1967 and 1974, she sang Lucia in Lucia di Lammermoor and Fiordiligi in Così fan Tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
to the Dorabella of Janet Baker
Janet Baker
Dame Janet Abbott Baker, CH, DBE, FRSA is an English mezzo-soprano best known as an opera, concert, and lieder singer.She was particularly closely associated with baroque and early Italian opera and the works of Benjamin Britten...
, as well as Sophie to Baker's Oktavian in Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier
Der Rosenkavalier is a comic opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to an original German libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. It is loosely adapted from the novel Les amours du chevalier de Faublas by Louvet de Couvrai and Molière’s comedy Monsieur de Pourceaugnac...
. In 1967, Harwood had played Donna Elvira in the Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence
Aix , or Aix-en-Provence to distinguish it from other cities built over hot springs, is a city-commune in southern France, some north of Marseille. It is in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, in the département of Bouches-du-Rhône, of which it is a subprefecture. The population of Aix is...
Festival's production of Don Giovanni. She was invited back in 1969 for Acis and Galatea. Her success in this and in her Scottish Opera roles attracted the attention of Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan
Herbert von Karajan was an Austrian orchestra and opera conductor. To the wider world he was perhaps most famously associated with the Berlin Philharmonic, of which he was principal conductor for 35 years...
, who invited her to appear at the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
the following year. There she played Fiordiligi and Constanze, and two years later Karajan cast her as the Countess in his Salzburg production of The Marriage of Figaro. He invited her to play roles at several more Salzburg Festivals. She made her début at La Scala
La Scala
La Scala , is a world renowned opera house in Milan, Italy. The theatre was inaugurated on 3 August 1778 and was originally known as the New Royal-Ducal Theatre at La Scala...
, Milan, as Constanze in 1971 and played other roles there in 1972. Her début at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
, New York, was in 1975 as Fiordiligi. For Glyndebourne, Harwood played Fiordiligi, Countess Almaviva, and, in 1982, the Marschallin in Der Rosenkavalier. Her last operatic performance was in 1983 in La colombe
La colombe
La Colombe is an opéra comique in two acts by Charles Gounod with a libretto by Jules Barbier and Michel Carré based, like Philémon et Baucis, on a poem of Jean de la Fontaine, in this case Le Faucon...
at Sadlers' Wells.
Concerts and last years
Throughout her career, Harwood gave numerous recitals and took part in many oratorios. She performed over 100 times in Messiah, the first time being at age 16, filling in for her mother. During the 1980s, she toured in concert internationally, including New Zealand (1983), Australia (1986), and British Columbia (1988). She was invited to sing on many occasions at the Rasiguères Festival of Wine and Music in France. From the mid-1970s, Harwood began to concentrate on song recitals: The Times wrote of this period in her career, "In the mid-1970s ... she was more likely to be heard in Lieder at the Queen Elizabeth HallQueen Elizabeth Hall
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a music venue on the South Bank in London, United Kingdom that hosts daily classical, jazz, and avant-garde music and dance performances. The QEH forms part of Southbank Centre arts complex and stands alongside the Royal Festival Hall, which was built for the Festival...
and the Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall is a leading international recital venue that specialises in hosting performances of chamber music and is best known for classical recitals of piano, song and instrumental music. It is located at 36 Wigmore Street, London, UK and was built to provide London with a venue that was both...
than at Covent Garden". One of her later appearances was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall in 1986, in a programme including Schubert
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert was an Austrian composer.Although he died at an early age, Schubert was tremendously prolific. He wrote some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies , liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music...
Lieder. Her final public performance was in November 1989 at the Bath Festival
Bath International Music Festival
The Bath International Music Festival, also known as the Bath Music Fest, is held each summer in Bath, South West England. Inaugurated in 1948, the festival includes many genres such as orchestral, contemporary jazz, folk and electronica...
.
In 1966, she married the businessman Julian A. C. Royle, a publisher of greetings cards. They had one son, Nicholas.
Harwood died at her home in Fryerning
Fryerning
Fryerning is a village in south Essex. It is situated just 1.5 miles north of Ingatestone. The Parish Church is St. Mary the Virgin in Blackmore Road...
, Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, England in 1990, aged 52, from cancer. The Musical Times
The Musical Times
The Musical Times is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom. It is currently the oldest such journal that is still publishing in the UK, having been published continuously since 1844. It was published as The Musical Times and Singing Class Circular until...
wrote of her,
"Elizabeth Harwood's lovely, warm voice, with its effortless production and evenness throughout a remarkable range, was matched by her level-headed approach to the world of opera and the generous nature of her personality."
Janet Baker said this about Harwood: "Elizabeth was the most beloved of my colleagues, a beautiful person in every way. Her art lit up the stage." The Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Award for Singers is given every year by the Royal Northern College of Music
Royal Northern College of Music
The Royal Northern College of Music is a music school in Manchester, England. It is located on Oxford Road in Chorlton on Medlock, at the western edge of the campus of the University of Manchester and is one of four conservatories associated with the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music...
.
Recordings
Harwood, despite a career cut short by her early death, made many recordings. Among her earliest were a series of Gilbert and SullivanGilbert and Sullivan
Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the librettist W. S. Gilbert and the composer Arthur Sullivan . The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S...
discs, beginning with an abbreviated 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...
recorded in Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...
in 1961 along with other selections for World Record Club discs. She was a guest artist for Decca
Decca Records
Decca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
with 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 1964 as Elsie 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...
and in the title role 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...
. Under the baton of Karajan, she recorded the title role of The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow
The Merry Widow is an operetta by the Austro–Hungarian composer Franz Lehár. The librettists, Viktor Léon and Leo Stein, based the story – concerning a rich widow, and her countrymen's attempt to keep her money in the principality by finding her the right husband – on an 1861 comedy play,...
for Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon
Deutsche Grammophon is a German classical record label which was the foundation of the future corporation to be known as PolyGram. It is now part of Universal Music Group since its acquisition and absorption of PolyGram in 1999, and it is also UMG's oldest active label...
, and Musetta 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...
for Decca. In Benjamin Britten
Benjamin Britten
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, OM CH was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He showed talent from an early age, and first came to public attention with the a cappella choral work A Boy Was Born in 1934. With the premiere of his opera Peter Grimes in 1945, he leapt to...
's recording of his A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream (opera)
A Midsummer Night's Dream is an opera with music by Benjamin Britten and set to a libretto adapted by the composer and Peter Pears from William Shakespeare's play, A Midsummer Night's Dream...
, she sang Tytania. Her other opera recordings include Delius
Delius
Delius is a surname. It may refer to:* Ernst von Delius - German racing car driver* Frederick Delius - English composer* Nicolaus Delius - German philologist* Tobias Delius Delius is a surname. It may refer to:* Ernst von Delius (1912–1937) - German racing car driver* Frederick Delius...
's A Village Romeo and Juliet
A Village Romeo and Juliet
A Village Romeo and Juliet is an opera by Frederick Delius, the fourth of his six operas. The composer himself, with his wife Jelka, wrote the English-language libretto based on the short story Romeo und Julia auf dem Dorfe by the Swiss author Gottfried Keller. The first performance was at the...
. A video recording of Harwood as Violetta in La traviata
La traviata
La traviata is an opera in three acts by Giuseppe Verdi set to an Italian libretto by Francesco Maria Piave. It is based on La dame aux Camélias , a play adapted from the novel by Alexandre Dumas, fils. The title La traviata means literally The Fallen Woman, or perhaps more figuratively, The Woman...
was issued in 1999.
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...
, Harwood was able to perform in both the traditional big-scale Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....
ian style and the emerging smaller-scale "period performance" style, recording the soprano part in Messiah for both Sir Malcolm Sargent
Malcolm Sargent
Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...
, a traditionalist, and Charles Mackerras
Charles Mackerras
Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...
, whose 1967 recording was a landmark in period performance.
External links
- Profile and photos at Bach-cantatas.com This spells her name as "Elisabeth", which appears to be an error.
- Information about the Elizabeth Harwood Memorial Award
- Photo of Harwood in Abduction from the Seraglio, 1964
- Listen to Harwood singing "Caro nome" from Rigoletto on YouTube