Sir Geraint Llewellyn Evans was a Welsh baritone or bass-baritone noted for operatic roles including Figaro in Le nozze di Figaro, Papageno in Die Zauberflöte, and the title roles in Falstaff and Wozzeck. He sang more than 70 different roles in a career that lasted from his first appearance at Covent Garden in 1948 to his farewell there in 1984.
Background
EVANS, Geraint was born on February 16, 1922 in Cilfynydd, Wales, the only son of William John Evans (1899–1978), a coal miner, and his wife, Charlotte May, née Thomas (1901–1923). His family was Welsh speaking, and Evans spoke Welsh before he learned English.
Education
Guildhall School of Music.
Career
On leaving school, aged 14, he worked as a window dresser for the High Class Ladies' Wear store in Pontypridd. In his spare time, he took singing lessons in Cardiff from Idloes Owen, who went on to found the Welsh National Opera as well as singing with the local Methodist choir and the local amateur dramatic society. On the outbreak of World War II, he volunteered for the Royal Air Force; he was trained as a radio mechanic, but also took part in services entertainments. After the war he worked for the British Forces Radio Network in Hamburg, where he sang with the radio chorus and took lessons from the baritone Theo Herrmann. He then studied with Fernando Carpi in Geneva and at the Guildhall School of Music in London with Walter Hyde.
During a career that lasted from his first appearance at Covent Garden in January 1948 to his farewell at the same house in June 1984, Evans played more than seventy roles. He made his operatic début as the nightwatchman in Die Meistersinger at the Royal Opera House in 1948 and was given the role of Figaro in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro there in 1949, a part which he went on to sing more than 500 times during his international career. It was as Figaro that he made his début at La Scala, Milan in 1960, the first British singer to appear there since the war. His Vienna Staatsoper début as a last-minute replacement impressed Herbert von Karajan, who offered him a contract with the company, but Evans declined, believing that his place was at Covent Garden, which he always regarded as his operatic home; despite international success he always called himself "Sir David [Webster]'s boy."
At the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1957, he first played the part with which he became internationally associated: the title role in Verdi's Falstaff, which he later played in opera houses around the world, including Covent Garden (1961, directed and designed by Franco Zeffirelli), the Vienna Staatsoper and the Metropolitan Opera (1964 in another Zeffirelli production). Other roles in which he was celebrated were Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger, Figaro, Don Pizarro in Fidelio, the title role in Don Pasquale, Dulcamara in L'elisir d'amore and Leporello in Don Giovanni. He was an outstanding actor in both comic and tragic roles such as Wozzeck.
Evans's repertoire was in the bass-baritone range such as Don Pizarro, and in Mozart he chose the lower roles - Leporello rather than Don Giovanni, Figaro rather than the Count. Roles higher in the baritone register were not comfortable for him: he never undertook Iago in Otello and his one attempt at the title role in Rigoletto, at Covent Garden in 1964, ended in disaster when his voice failed on the first night, on which occasion he took the unusual step of apologising to the audience at the final curtain.
Evans appeared in the premières of many modern British operas, including Vaughan Williams's Pilgrim's Progress (1951); Britten's Billy Budd (1951) and Gloriana (1953), Walton's Troilus and Cressida (1954), and Hoddinott's The Beach of Falesá (1974) and Murder the Magician (1976). In Billy Budd, Britten wrote much of the title part with Evans in mind, but the singer, after preparing the role, found that it lay uncomfortably high for him and opted for the lesser role of Mr Flint, the Sailing Master. Later in his career, Evans switched to the bass role of the evil John Claggart, Master at Arms.