Obituary, Ryland Davies (1943-2023)

The Welsh light lyric tenor Ryland Davies, a superb Mozartian who later enjoyed a rich and varied career in character-roles, has died aged 80.

Davies was born in Cwm, Ebbw Vale in 1943 and trained with Frederic Cox at the Royal Manchester College of Music. Whilst still a student, he took a summer contract as a chorus-member at Glyndebourne, where an audition with British conductor Bryan Balkwill led to his first professional engagement in a major role: Almaviva in Rossini’s The Barber of Seville at Welsh National Opera, which ‘launched [his career] very quickly’.

After further study in Italy, Davies became the first recipient of Glyndebourne’s John Christie Award and was engaged to sing Nemorino and Belmonte in upcoming seasons; it marked the beginning of a thirty-year relationship with the Festival, with highlights including Lysander in Peter Hall’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Lensky in Eugene Onegin and Flamand in Capriccio.

Despite a plethora of offers to tackle the more lyrical Verdi and Puccini heroes, Davies concentrated his energies on Mozart (and the occasional light bel canto assignment) for the early part of his career: Ferrando in particular became something of a calling-card, and it was in that role which he made his debuts at San Francisco Opera (1970) and the Metropolitan Opera (1975). In between those two productions, he recorded the opera with Sir Georg Solti (with Pilar Lorengar and Teresa Berganza as the sisters); Gramophone described his interpretation as ‘keen and pleasing in tone, secure in line… and particularly eloquent in eventually breaking down the vulnerable defences of Lorengar's Fiordiligi.’

In 1969, Davies made his first appearance at Covent Garden, in gloriously fresh voice as the homesick young sailor Hylas in Berlioz’s Les Troyens under Colin Davis; he also sang the role on Davis’s Grammy-winning studio recording of the work that same year (with his wife Anne Howells, another former Frederic Cox student, as Ascagne). Comprimario roles on several other landmark recordings followed, including Arturo (opposite Joan Sutherland and Luciano Pavarotti) on Richard Bonynge’s 1971 account of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor, Ruiz in Verdi’s Il Trovatore (alongside Leontyne Price, Fiorenza Cossotto, Placido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes), and a cameo as Alfredo on Price’s recording of Violetta’s great scena from Act One of La traviata in 1972. He also sang on numerous fine oratorio recordings, including Handel's Saul and Judas Maccabeus (with Charles Mackerras) and Haydn’s The Seasons, Mozart’s Requiem & Mass in C minor (again with Colin Davis).

In the mid-80s Davies decided to shift his primary focus to teaching, which remained a priority for the rest of his career: he held positions at the Royal Academy of Music, the Wales International Academy of Voice and La Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid as well as giving private lessons from his home in Surrey, counting tenors David Butt Philip, Stuart Jackson, Robert Murray and Andrew Staples among his students.

However, a second chapter of his performing career awaited: in his fifties he began to carve an extremely successful niche in character roles including Don Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro (which he recorded for Sir Charles Mackerras), Triquet in Eugene Onegin, Sellim in The Rake’s Progress, the Shepherd in Tristan und Isolde, and Alcindoro in La bohème (which would be his final role at Covent Garden in 2015).

Davies died on 5th November, and is survived by his wife Debbie and daughter Emily.

Ryland Davies - a selected discography