Operatic tenor of great charm and musicality
January 21, 1910 – October 26, 2006
John Kentish was a versatile lyric tenor with a fine voice and an attractive stage presence.
Born in Blackheath, London, he was educated at Rugby School and Oriel College, Oxford, where he joined the opera club and in 1928 scored a success in Weber’s Der Freischütz, conducted by Reginald Jacques. The following year he took the role of Vašek in Smetana’s The Bartered Bride conducted by Sir Hugh Allen. He got rave reviews and, as a result, went down before taking his finals. He studied seriously — in Vienna and elsewhere — and had begun to make a career in opera and as a recitalist when the Second World War intervened.
A junior officer in the Royal Navy throughout the war, he saw action in the Mediterranean and on convoys to North Russia. Soon after the war ended Kentish joined Sadler’s Wells Opera.
His lyric roles included Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Alfredo in La traviata and Almaviva in The Barber of Seville. He repeated Vašek and sang Tichon in Katya Kabanova for Raphael Kubelik in the legendary first British performance in 1954.
By that time he had begun to appear at Glyndebourne where his roles included Malcolm in Macbeth (1952), Sellem in The Rake’s Progress, Scaramuccio in Ariadne auf Naxos, Valzacchi in Der Rosenkavalier and Mauer in Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers (1961). Meanwhile he appeared in two Handel Opera Society productions: as Ulisse in Deidemia (1955) and as Oronte to Joan Sutherland’s Alcina (1957).
His versatility and courage were self-evident when, in 1950, he returned to Oxford to sing Aeneas in Berlioz’s The Trojans on three consecutive nights in the first English performances, under Jack Westrup. As the years passed he moved from lyric to character roles. Harold Rosenthal, in Opera magazine, thought his Basilio (in Figaro) “the best I can remember”.
During the 1960s Kentish taught privately and at the Guildhall School, and in the late 1970s became director of studies at the London Opera Centre. He was then director of opera at the Royal College.
In 1983 he retired from professional activity and moved to Wells in Somerset where he continued to teach privately.
Properly, but never aggressively, ambitious, John Kentish made the very most of a beautiful voice of medium size, which he enhanced with exceptional musicality, intelligence and charm. He was also a good colleague: a friend described him as a “gentle, handsome, romantic man”.
He is survived by his wife, Leigh, and three of his four children.
John Kentish, tenor, was born on January 21, 1910. He died on October 26, 2006, aged 96
The Times
November 23, 2006
John Kentish, who has died aged 96, was a much-loved lyric tenor in British opera houses; with his perfect sense of comic timing he excelled in cameo roles, notably with Denis Dowling in The Merry Widow for Sadler’s Wells.
Kentish appeared in 160 performances at Glyndebourne, with roles ranging from Pedrillo in Die Entführung, under Berthold Goldschmidt in 1948, to Don Curzio in Figaro, under Silvio Varviso in 1963 (with Geraint Evans in the title role). Those with whom he worked included Teresa Berganza, Joan Sutherland, Elisabeth Söderström and Thomas Hemsley.
He also played an important part as director of studies, and later director, at the London Opera Centre, which, between 1963 and 1977, nurtured many of the brightest stars of the stage, including Kiri te Kanawa.
The son of an accountant, John William Kentish was born on January 21 1910 at Blackheath, and was educated at Rugby, where he captained the First XV. At Oriel College, Oxford, where he also played rugby, he distinguished himself sufficiently in The Bartered Bride to be invited to return in a professional capacity in Rameau’s Castor and Pollux in 1934. Noting his earlier appearance, The Times commented: “He has fully realized the promise which he then showed.”
He studied in Vienna and in London, where he worked for two years with Dinh Gilly, the Algerian-born baritone. Kentish liked to recall how, as a young man, he had gone to a recital by Elena Gerhardt, the German mezzo. Her singing of the last song was particularly moving, and afterwards he asked her what was in her mind while she was singing it. She replied: “Dear boy, I was thinking about the lovely steak I am about to have at the Savoy.”
By 1935 Kentish was on the books of Ibbs & Tillett, the leading musicians’ agency of the time, who sent him to music clubs, festivals and opera houses around the country. He took part in the celebrations to mark the 250th anniversary of Handel’s birth in 1935, in a production of Acis and Galatea with the BBC Choir and Orchestra under Adrian Boult. During the war he served with the Navy in the North Atlantic convoys and was later torpedoed in the Mediterranean. By the time he was demobilised he was almost 40, and the experience had matured him. Regular engagements beckoned. Kentish’s repertoire was broad, and at Glyndebourne he had roles in Figaro and Fidelio, in Stravinsky’s Rake’s Progress and Henze’s Elegy for Young Lovers.
At Sadler’s Wells he attracted good notices as the Tsar in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Snow Maiden (1950) and for his “seedy” Basilio in Figaro (1951) under Charles Mackerras.
According to the conductor Jeffrey Tate, who was deliberating between a career in medicine or in the opera house, he met Kentish at a party in Richmond and was immediately prevailed upon to accompany the tenor in some ad hoc singing. So impressed was Kentish with the young doctor’s piano-playing that he persuaded Tate to take the musical option and pursue a life in the orchestral pit.
On one occasion in the 1950s Kentish was playing the lead role in Hugh the Drover for the Berkhamsted Operatic and Dramatic Society (with Charles Farncombe playing the French horn in the orchestra). At the final performance Vaughan Williams himself appeared on stage and said: “I expected the worst but was given the best.” Kentish went on to take part in Blind Raftery by Joan Trimble in 1957, one of the first operas to be written for television.
During his long retirement Kentish lived at Wells, in Somerset, where, in 1986, he was a much-loved founder member of the Cathedral Voluntary Choir. He also gave personal tuition to many of the Vicars Choral. He was a fine linguist, and almost to the end of his life read books in German, Italian and French.
John Kentish died on October 26. He is survived by his wife, Leigh Howard, a former professor at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and by a son and two daughters. Another daughter predeceased him.
16th November 2006.
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