Thomas Round

English opera singer (1915–2016)

Thomas Round (18 October 1915 – 2 October 2016) was an English opera singer and actor, best known for his performances in the leading tenor roles of the Savoy Operas and grand opera. Round began working as a joiner and then a police officer. During World War II, he served in the Royal Air Force, training in Texas and later becoming a flight instructor for the United States Army Air Forces, while singing in churches. He sang leading tenor roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company from 1946 to 1949. He next spent six years in the 1950s singing opera and operetta with Sadler's Wells Opera. From 1958 to 1964, Round again performed mostly with the D'Oyly Carte company. In 1963, he co founded a new ensemble, Gilbert and Sullivan for All, with which he toured extensively over the next two decades, singing and serving as one of the company's directors. He also sang in oratorio and concerts, broadcast on radio and television, and is heard on many recordings. Round continued to perform and lecture into his 90s.

Round was born and raised in Barrow in Furness, Lancashire (now in Cumbria). He was the third of four children of a furnace man at a steel mill. Round began singing as a child in the St Paul's Mission church choir, where he met his future wife, Alice York. On leaving Barrow Technical College at the age of 15, he started working at the mill as an apprentice joiner and competed at some music festivals. In 1936 he joined the police force and was stationed in Lancaster. During World War II, Round became a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force and was posted to Canada and then the No. 1 British Flying Training School in Terrell, Texas, serving as a flying instructor for the United States Air Force. He then began his performing career, later recalling, "I was doing a lot of singing every Sunday in churches all over Texas. I had my own plane so I would fly down 300 miles to San Antonio for an 11 a. m. service, I would sing and then I would fly back home in the evening." and joined it upon his discharge, in February 1946. He understudied the leading Gilbert and Sullivan tenor roles, appearing occasionally as Nanki Poo in The Mikado. In September of the same year, he became the company's principal tenor, for the next three years, playing the roles of Ralph Rackstraw in H. M. S. Pinafore, Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance, Earl Tolloller in Iolanthe, Nanki Poo in The Mikado, and Luiz in The Gondoliers. Round found the D'Oyly Carte touring schedule gruelling and left company in 1949. He appeared in Emile Littler's musical Waltzes from Vienna, playing the young Johann Strauss, and two ice shows, Rose Marie on Ice (1950) and the London Melody. but generally took the leading romantic tenor roles, including Tamino in The Magic Flute, Jeník in The Bartered Bride, and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni. He played roles in Gianni Schicchi, Lilac Time, Eugene Onegin, Wolf Ferrari's School for Fathers (Count Riccardo), and John Gardner's adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence. During his Sadler's Wells years, Round undertook guest engagements elsewhere. He created the tenor lead, Nils, in the world premiere of Delius's Irmelin under Sir Thomas Beecham in Oxford in 1953. The critic Eric Blom wrote, "Thomas Round as the hero was particularly good. He should soon make a Siegfried, though perhaps only the young Siegfried to begin with." Also in 1953, he appeared in the film The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan. In 1955 he and the young Heather Harper played the leads in a televised version of La traviata, which was the first full length opera ever shown on BBC television. Round returned to D'Oyly Carte, on tour in 1958 in Dublin, playing his old roles of Frederic, Nanki Poo, adding Ralph, and, for the first time, Marco in The Gondoliers, the following season. During the company's summer break in 1958, Round earned more good notices as Count Danilo opposite June Bronhill with Sadler's Wells in The Merry Widow at the London Coliseum. The production was made into the first film by a major British opera company of The Merry Widow (1958). He also played principal roles in Pagliacci, In 1960 and 1961 he assumed a new role, Colonel Fairfax, in The Yeomen of the Guard, also appearing in that role for the City of London Festival production at the Tower of London in 1962. In 1961, his other new roles were Richard Dauntless in Ruddigore and Cyril in Princess Ida, and he participated in 1962–63 in the company's extensive North American tour. Round built up a popular following particularly among female members of the D'Oyly Carte and Sadler's Wells audiences. To enable the company to appear in small venues, Sullivan's orchestrations were adapted and arranged for smaller forces than D'Oyly Carte employed. Round sang the roles of Box in Cox and Box, the Defendant in Trial, Ralph in H. M. S. Pinafore, Frederic in Pirates, Tolloller in Iolanthe, Nanki Poo in The Mikado, Richard Dauntless in Ruddigore, Colonel Fairfax in Yeomen, and Marco in The Gondoliers, as well as acting as a director for the company. During his Gilbert and Sullivan for All years, Round also appeared as Arthur Sullivan on tour with Donald Adams in Tarantara! Tarantara!, a musical about the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership by Ian Taylor.