An event to mark the centenary of the birth in Broadstairs of one of the most celebrated British singers of her time, the star soprano Jennifer Vyvyan, will be held this month.
Jennifer was born in Granville Road, Broadstairs on 13th March 1925.
Marking the date there will be tribute concerts to her memory at the Royal Academy of Music, London (3 April) and at the Aldeburgh Festival, Suffolk (26 June).
But on the day itself, 13th March at Pierremont Hall, the Mayor of Broadstairs will be presented with some of Jennifer Vyvyan’s recordings by her biographer, the well-known critic and broadcaster Michael White.
Michael will be available to talk about the singer’s legacy and show other mementoes of her life and work.
After the presentation, Mayor Cllr Mike Garner and Michael will walk to Granville Road to the house where Jennifer was born.
Jennifer had a relatively short life, dying in 1974 when she was in her 40s from a chronic asthmatic condition that she spent most of her career trying desperately to hide. But she nonetheless played a unique part in what was a golden age of British singing during the mid-20th Century.
A key figure in the English Opera Group, she was one of the composer Benjamin Britten’s inner circle. Major stage roles like the Governess in Turn of the Screw, Tytania in Midsummer Night’s Dream, Lady Rich in the coronation opera Gloriana and Mrs Julian in the TV opera Owen Wingrave were written for her, tailored to her voice and personality – she was talented at portraying highly strung neurosis.
Beyond Britten, she championed many new works by other contemporary composers: Francis Poulenc, Malcolm Williamson, Lennox Berkeley, Arthur Bliss, Gordon Crosse…
She was also a key figure in the modern stage revival of baroque opera, starring in performances of Handel and Purcell for the Handel Opera Society, the Royal Opera Covent Garden, Sadlers Wells and Aldeburgh Festival. And she was much-loved by general audiences in the 1950s/60s/70s thanks to hundreds of radio and TV appearances, regular invitations to the Proms, countless solo dates with the choral societies of England & Wales, and a large catalogue of commercial recordings – many of them with Britten and also two boxed sets of Handel’s Messiah that were the go-to versions of their time. One was conducted by Sir Adrian Boult, the other by Sir Thomas Beecham.
A mark of her distinction was that she was chosen by Sir Arthur Bliss, Master of the Queen’s Music, to take a leading part in what was at the time a hugely publicised piece of Anglo-Soviet cultural politics.
In 1956 – the height of the Cold War, when there was little East/West cultural exchange – Bliss organised what he called a ‘Musical Embassy’ to take half a dozen prominent British musicians to Russia, bringing English music to Soviet audiences. Jennifer was one of those musicians and it made her a household name.
As with almost any singer, her celebrity faded after death; but recent years have seen a resurgence of interest.
There’s a substantial website to her: www.jennifervyvyan.org. There have been lectures, exhibitions and other events, including a study day and tribute concert at Wigmore Hall to which a number of the surviving star English singers from the mid-20th Century came.
Most recently there was a Jennifer Vyvyan symposium at the Royal Academy of Music, together with the unveiling of a plaque on her final home in Hampstead, London. Many of her classic recordings have also now been reissued.
“One of the most celebrated British singers of her time”? Has anyone ever heard of this singer? No, sorry. Who’s he?
Just because Katmanndu has never heard of her doesn’t mean Jennifer Vyvyan was not a well-known and acclaimed singer during her lifetime. There are hundreds of British singers now alive whose names are unfamiliar to me. That doesn’t mean they’re not familiar to people who like the kind of music they sing.
She was a huge influence on Herman’s Hermits.