Death of a great British baritone
RIPOpera singers are sharing sad news of the death, on Thursday, of the legendary Benjamin Luxon. He was 87.
A Cornishman from Redruth, Luxon created the role of Owen Wyngrave in an opera that Benjamin Britten wrote with his voice in mind. He also appeared as the Jester in Peter Maxwell Davies’ opera Taverner at Covent Garden.
A fixture for two decades at English National Opera, he achieved apotheosis as a tremendous 1992 Falstaff. Luxon was renowned as a recital singer, specialising in English songs and making more than 100 recordings.
He retired relatively early with hearing loss.
Very sad news. A really great artist and a warm and friendly personality. I vividly recall in 1963 his performance of Sir Tristram in Rutland Boughton’s The Queen of Cornwall at the St Pancras Town Hall where I was working backstage.
Sad news. My earliest memory was watching him on tv with Robert Tear. My dad was very fond of his voice.
A great singer and a wonderful man and musician. I am grateful for his gifts so generously shared- he was a memorable Noah when I was a tiny mouse in Truro Cathedral’s terrific production of Britten’s Noyes Fludde
A great singer – a great loss.
Truly, a massive loss. End of an era, perhaps.
Very sad to read of Ben’s passing. I remember him as a student at The Guildhall School in the very late 60s early 70s. And I took part in a memorable performance (in YouTube I believe) of Mendelssohn’s Elijah from Birmingham Town Hall in (about 1990/1) with Margaret Marshall, Alfreda Hodgson and Ian Caley, conducted by Rafael Frübeck de Burgos. RIP Ben.
I attended that memorable Elijah and also heard him in a moving Faure Requiem and Survivor from Warsaw His Don Giovanni in the wonderful Peter Hall production from Glyndebourne is thankfully preserved on DVD as is his lovable Papageno in the Hockney Zauberflote RIP
Reading this one would think he only ever sung in the UK. No mention of the many performances at La Scala, Bayerische Staatsoper, Wiener Staatsoper, the Metropolitan opera and many many more international houses. He was a true star, and one of the most modest and kindest. On top of that he had a natural ability to communicate the simplest of songs to a wide ranging public, hence his success on shows like The Good Old Days, and then later in his career singing folk music with the American folk artist Bill Crofut. There are so many wonderful videos and recordings of him singing on youtube, but if I were asked to single out one, then his performance of ‘Johnny I hardly knew’ya’ with Crofut stands out. The intensity of the performance is breathtaking, displaying all the qualities he brought to his music making. He will be greatly missed. RIP Ben Luxon.
Before I became an opera singer (thanks in no small measure to Ben’s encouragement) I was a Studio Manager (sound engineer) for BBC Radio 3. It was possible to hire the studios for private recordings, and Ben and Bill Crofut asked me to arrange a couple of days’ hire in order to record their album of British and American folk music. So i was privileged to be at the controls when Ben recorded (in one unforgettable take) his performance of “Johnny, I hardly knew ya”. It was breathtaking. I fully agree with you that it’s one of the best things he ever put down on tape. Among many of the generous things he did for me, he gave me copies of some of the rare Victoriana that he and Bob Tear used to perform together, with his blessing to use them as and when. RIP Ben, and thank you for your friendship and for so much else.
Oh to be remembered with such kind thoughts & memories!
Lovely words.
Hi Peter, Lovely comment of yours – how lucky you are to have known him personally in those long ago BBC days and since. A voice never to be forgotten. I picked up the sad news from Jo Burton on 28th. Helen R.
So glad for the mention of his work with Bill Crofut. I first discovered Luxon as a classical singer (probably RVW’s Sea Symphony?). But he was so much more as the albums with Crofut show.
Peace and rest to his family.
He was Wozzeck for Abbado (1984) and Rattle (1988).
He’s on video singing Ford at Glyndebourne under Pritchard in 1976, before he took on Falstaff.
He recorded Riders to the Sea for EMI in 1970.
He can be seen in Oberon, or The Elf-King’s Oath, in a semi-staging in Frankfurt led by Ozawa in 1986.
He sang Onegin for Rostropovich and Ozawa, in 1982 and 1986.
And he recorded Polyphemus under Marriner for Argo in 1978.
Then there was the gorgeous New Year’s gala of die Fledermaus with Kiri te Kanawa at Covent Gardens. Ridiculously God fun.
Such a lovely bloke !! He studied with Arthur reckless a little before myself and Alan Opie , also Cornish. Terrible loss to all. Kindest thoughts to family. !! Warren
Very sad to hear this. I grew up in Cornwall and although he had pretty much retired by the time I was born, I remember very well an event for kids where he read The Mousehole Cat and then sang Mud Mud Glorious Mud. Obviously I was too young to appreciate his artistry, but I’ve since grown to love recordings of his. I especially love his Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen. He was very important in securing funding for the Hall for Cornwall, which remains such a crucial arts venue. A fine Cornishman and he will be much missed.
A truly great artist and a really lovely man.
remember seeing him live in London FH.
A great singer from a whole generations of greats
Heavenly man and a beautiful singer.
He retired from opera singing but had a vigorous and consequential career in Sandisfield Massachusetts as a founder and director of the Sandisfield Players, host and reader of poetry events, mentor to many well known musicians, master gardener, and inspiration to his family and wide circle of friends.
Indeed, there was a wonderful production of Our Town which he directed and played the stage manager. He was an always powerful, gracious presence. I will miss him very much.
Sad loss to the whole musical world, superb voice.
A wonderful singer. I have just listened to his appearance on Desert Island Discs.
His favourite piece was ‘Profiscere, anima christiana’, from The Dream of Gerontius. Very appropriate, as the first time I heard him was also the first time I heard Gerontius. 1968 Three Choirs Festival, in Gloucester.
It was very sad that his career was cut short by his hearing problems.
Proficiscere, not Profiscere! Apologies.
I think most of us knew what you meant Barney!
I heard him in the title role of Handel’s Julius Caesar, under Harnoncourt. Theater an der Wien, 1985. Wonderful. RIP
Purely a query – isn’t Caesar a role for a mezzo or a counter tenor? I never heard of it being sung by a baritone
Handel’s Giulio Cesare is a contralto role; it was written for the castrato known as Senesino. Before the mid-to-late 1970s, when the opera was revived, the role was usually transposed down an octave and given to a baritone. (Perhaps the most famous example of this was the New York City Opera performance and recording that made a star of Beverly Sills.)
I am surprised that Harnoncourt, of all people, cast a baritone in the role as late as 1985.
Below is a link to video of the production. I received it as a deeply felt performance. By contrast, my well- respected teacher in a performance practice class, Hartmut Krones, was very dismissive about all kinds of choices. Contrary to popular belief, Harnoncourt was not a purist. For instance, he argued that original instruments should only be chosen for musical reasons. After all, he recorded plenty of Haydn and Mozart symphonies with the Concertgebouw.
https://www.operaonvideo.com/giulio-cesare-vienna-1985-harnoncourt-luxon-alexander-lipovsek-murray-hampson/
It originally was, and now it’s back to being so again, but when the opera reemerged in the 1950s and 1960s, Caesar was sung by Otto Wiener, Cesare Siepi, Walter Berry, Kostas Paskalis, and most impressively of all, by Norman Treigle. It may be forgotten now, that the New York City Opera’s mid-1960s production with Treigle achieved worldwide fame by also making an “overnight” star out of Beverly Sills as Cleopatra. I guess it’s personal, but authenticity be damned – I want Caesar to sound like a macho man rather than a misplaced grisette!
I meant to add that he was 87, not 85. Born 24/3/37.
The great Owen Wingrave.
1976, an extremely hot summer Saturday afternoon in York Minster, dress rehearsal for Gerontius with an amateur choir formed especially for York Festival. We young altos were already thrilled to have heard Janet Baker sing with us. We had a break and watched the masses of tourists milling around for the free performance. Orchestra started up and a tall man broke away from a group of tourists and walked the length of the aisle. Shirts, T shirt and a big beard: he grinned at all of us, turned around, opened his mouth and the huge minster was filled with the glorious ‘Profiscere anima christiana’. No score, just a voice and stunned looks from the people he’d been talking to who obviously had no idea who he was. Spine tingling moment, never forgotten
I echo all the above comments. I have very good memories of BL. As a young, enthusiastic and serious amateur singer who wanted to improve I wrote to him asking his advice. At the time he was travelling round the country with Robert Tear doing concerts of the Victorian Songbook they’d recently recorded. He asked me to meet him before the concert so we could talk. We talked in the queue for his concert. There was no going to the front for preferential treatment. He got me in for nothing. It was great concert. After he had to retire from his singing career because of hearing loss and went to America he would make trips to the UK for various things and I bumped into him at the RNCM in Manchester where his daughter was studying. Then later still I asked him to contribute to a piece I was writing about the idea of there being a completely natural voice, the model upon which the Florentine Camerata in about 1600 had based the training of singers, which he willingly did. He was without affectation and generous. I also felt he was close to the earth where I believe all good and great singers reside. And he was positive and warm despite nature landing him a cruel blow that ended his stella singing career. Thank you Ben. RIP.
I remember seeing him learning a part through the glass window of a studio door at Gsmd. Totally focused, ac companying himself, you could feel the greatness in the air.
Remember him in 1981 when I was in Scottish Opera Chorus and the days of star singers up there in Glasgow, in David Poutney’s wonderful production of Eugene Onegin and Terry Gilbert as the choreographer – as the chorus did all the dancing too – in David Lloyd Jones’s fine English translation. Also Helena Dose, Claire Livingstone, Alexander Oliver, and John Robertson to name a few. Ben was delightful towards us choristers and make-shift dancers, and did a fine Onegin. Another one of the great unassuming but quietly talented British singers has now gone.
Yet again, another classical great, with a wonderfully lyrical voice and eclectic repertoire, whose passing has been ignored by BBC “Culture” and Cornish web pages, and TV news bulletins. At least Radio 3 has remembered him, but his passing should be more broadcast to the ‘masses’. RIP.
https://www.kcstudio.com/Luxon.html
Two Benjamins: Benjamin Luxon taking about Benjamin Britten and writing for the voice. Very much woth a read.
Ben Luxon came to St John’s, Cambridge, in 1975 to record the Fauré Requiem with George Guest. His glorious tone and remarkable breath control sent me, with the other basses in the choir, back to the drawing board. A fine singer and a fine human being. Rest in Peace, Ben.
Ben Luxton was a fine musician who possessed a beautifully refined Baritone voice.
Have only just read this news. What a man, what a singer, what a colleague!
Everything I have ever heard him sing was effortless and from the heart. He was such a wonderful musician and communicator too. I sang my British début as Pamina with Ben as Papageno at Glyndebourne in 1978 and loved him from day one. My husband and I listen to his recordings often and in particular to Mache dich, mein herze, rein which, in our opinion will never be bettered. Farewell to a fabulous human being and thank you for all the wonderful singing.
Vividly remember him in Glyndebourne in Don Giovanni in 1977. Sad to see him go.
I was fortunate to hear him in the first stage performance of Owen Wingrave, in May 1973, and on many other occasions. As great a singer as it is possible to be. May he rest in peace.
I was also very saddened to read the sad news of Benjamin Luxon’s death. I always found his performances and recordings immensely powerful and inspiring, especially in my days as a Baritone. He was almost a Rolè model. My favourite recordings of his will always be his English Song Series on Chandos. They are brilliant, as are his Schubert recordings, also on Chandos. His two recordings of Walton’s Belshazzar’s Feast with LPO/Solti and, secondly, with RPO/Previn are first class and both benefit greatly from his declamatory style. Then there are his two excellent Elgar Oratorio recordings, The Dream of Gerontius with Alex Gibson/SNO and his much later recording of The Kingdom with Leonard Slatkin/LPO. I was at the performance of the latter in London’s Royal Festival Hall and afterwards sneaked backstage to chat with Ben and Leonard Slatkin. A memorable night. His towering performance as Owen Wingrave in Britten’s Opera of the same name – a rolé composed for him – is spine-chilling! His part in Britten’s War Requiem with Robert Shaw is cruelly overlooked. From Folk music through Victorian Parlour Songs with Robert Tear and André Previn to his Opera performances and recordings he was such a versatile singer and one of our greatest singers whose career was sadly cut short because of a hearing problem. One regret must surely be that he was never asked to record Vaughan Williams’s First Symphony, ‘A Sea Symphony’, for which he had the perfect voice as against the varied weak Baritones on offer in the recorded market. A missed opportunity! His was a voice that touched the soul. RIP Ben Luxon and condolences to his family and friends.
In 1967 Ben was Demetrius to Bob Tear’s Lysander in Colin Graham’s new production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was the first opera performed at the newly opened Snape Maltings and went on to Sadlers Wells, Paris and Expo 67 in Montreal. I was very privileged to play Puck and Ben was always really kind and helpful to a nervous (and probably very annoying!) 16-year old. I loved his Cornish ‘burr’ and he and Bob Tear had great fun winding up Colin Graham in rehearsals – but were scary rivals in performance. A lovely man, a gorgeous voice.
Benjamin Luxon was my favorite British baritone of the entire second half of the last century. He was simply wonderful in everything he did, and on this side of the Atlantic we got particularly used to (hardly mentioned elsewhere here) a series of LPs on which he did a kind of crossover, singing British and American songs of mostly the Victorian era as no ‘legitimate’ singer I’ve heard has ever done. One of the albums was called “Give Me a Ticket to Heaven”, but there were others. One of the late pop LPs he made was an entire recital of Broadway show songs of the “Old Man River” variety, including the best version of the CAROUSEL Soliloquy I have ever heard by an operatic voice (far, far superior to George London’s well known version). He also appeared on American TV with Arthur Fiedler and the Boston “Pops” in connection with that album. It was one of the more memorable appearances of that kind – opera singer slumming! – and exciting as hell, since he seemed to live every song as he sang it. So very sorry he is gone!
Nice obituary here – https://www.bright-thoughts.co.uk/news-jul2024.html
Sad news. Amazing artist
I met him with Robert Tear when working for Decca in the late 70s. They were both very friendly and fun! With, of course, wonderful voices. I re-met Bob Tear at Dartington in 90s and he told me of Ben’s tragic hearing loss. His years of singing are such a treasure.
Such a great loss. I loved his beautiful voice. RIP Benjamin.
So sad to hear of Ben’s passing. I remember hearing him on tour in Southampton in the mid-sixties with the English Opera Group as a warm and charismatic Sid in “Albert Herring” opposite Janet Baker as Nancy. I can still hear the beauty and naturalness of his delivery in “Churchyard’s agog with a crowd of folk”. An absolute object lesson for anyone wanting to sing in English, or any other language, for that matter! RIP.
Really sad news. RIP Ben. One of the greats. He was a passionate Cornishman. As an ex opera singer myself I was absolutely privileged to meet him and work with him when he was President of The Hall For Cornwall and a member of its Trust and Board. A relationship for which I am eternally grateful. A great loss to mankind.
I remember him as a great Papageno, also Wozzeck, with Scottish Opera in the 1980’s
Enjoyed reading all these well-deserved kudos for this man. I worked at WFLN in Philadelphia for many years and often had occasion to front and back announce one of his recordings. That lovely tone….
A rich, powerful and expressive voice. What a loss. One of the greats.
Sad to see this. A lovely man, with a keen sense of humour and wonderful voice