Sir Willard Wentworth White
OM CBE (born October 10, 1946) is a Jamaican-born British bass-baritone.
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WILLARD WHITE TICKETS
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Early life
He was born into a poor but supportive
Jamaican family in
Kingston. His father was a dockworker, his mother a housewife. White first began to learn music by listening to the radio and singing
Nat King Cole songs. He was also inspired by the
American singer and
civil rights activist,
Paul Robeson. He was a founding member of the Jamaica Folk Singers, sang with the Jamaica Amateur Operatic Society and trained at the Jamaican School of Music. In a passing visit to Jamaica,
Evelyn Rothwell (wife of conductor Sir
John Barbirolli) heard him sing and suggested that he go to study in London. Instead, his father bought him a one-way ticket to
New York, because "the flight was cheaper". He won a scholarship and continued his studies with celebrated bass
Giorgio Tozzi at the
Juilliard School.
Career
In May 1971, White made his debut as the runaway slave Jim in the Juilliard American Opera production of
Hall Overton's opera,
Huckleberry Finn
. He next appeared with
New York City Opera in 1974 as Colline in
La bohème
. In 1976, he made his London opera debut with
English National Opera as Seneca in
Monteverdi's
L'incoronazione di Poppea
, having appeared earlier in the same year in
Porgy and Bess
. He has since sung at the
Met,
Covent Garden,
Paris Bastille, the opera houses of
San Francisco,
Los Angeles, and the major European cities as well as the Festivals at
Glyndebourne,
Aix-en-Provence and
Salzburg.
In addition to covering a wide range of the bass-baritone roles in the standard repertoire by
Mozart,
Handel,
Rossini,
Verdi,
Puccini and
Wagner, White has explored less traditional, and in many cases, completely unfamiliar territory by appearing as Bluebeard in
Bartók's
Bluebeard's Castle
, Golaud in
Debussy's
Pelléas and Mélisande
, Tchélio in
Prokofiev's
The Love for Three Oranges
, the title role in
Messiaen’s
Saint François d'Assise
, Nekrotzar in
Ligeti's
Le Grand Macabre
, Claggart in
Britten's
Billy Budd
,
John Adams’
El Niño
, Nick Shadow in
Stravinsky's
The Rake's Progress
, Creon in Stravinsky's
Oedipus Rex
, the title role in
Mussorgsky's
Boris Godunov
and Ivan in
Khovanshchina
.
In 2005 he sang
Michael Tippett's
A Child of our Time
at the First Night of the Proms. His latest CD, entitled
My Way
, is on the
Sony label.
His voice was heard as one of the operatic soloists in the
Academy Award-winning motion picture
Amadeus
.
Among his most memorable roles is Mephistopheles in
Berlioz's
The Damnation of Faust
.
A talented actor, he has starred in a
Royal Shakespeare Company production of the play
Othello
(1990), with
Ian McKellen as Iago and
Imogen Stubbs as Desdemona, and the Glyndebourne production (1993) of the opera
Porgy and Bess
. Both productions were directed by
Trevor Nunn and both were
videotaped for
television. White also appeared with
Cantamus Girls Choir in Harrogate, 2004.
On 4 July, Willard appeared in the
Chichester Festivities, singing
Mendelssohn's
Elijah
alongside
Claire Seaton,
Katherine Allen and
Andrew Dickinson and accompanied by the
Chichester Singers and
Southern Pro Musica in
Chichester Cathedral. This was conducted by
Jonathan Willcocks.
Awards
In 1977, a recording of
Porgy and Bess
, in which White sang the role of Porgy, received a
Grammy Award. White himself received the Gold Musgrave Medal of The Institute of Jamaica. In
1995 he was awarded the
CBE and he was made a
Knight Bachelor in the
Queen's Birthday Honours in
2004. In 2000, Sir Willard White was awarded the
Jamaican Order of Merit (OM), the third highest honour in the
Jamaican honours system, for eminent international distinction in the performing arts.
White is the father of seven children (Ralston Olivier Forsman-White (glass ceramist), Deborah White, Johnathan White, Daniel White (missionary to the Belgian people)) Jana White, Clara White, and Jay White. He lives in
Lewisham,
London.
Selected discography
- Wagner: Die Walküre
as Wotan with Eva Johansson, Robert Gambill, Lilli Paasikivi, Eva-Maria Westbroek, Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir Simon Rattle, Festival Aix-en-Provence, DVD
- Berlioz: La Damnation de Faust
as Mephistopheles with Veselina Kasarova, Paul Groves, Salzburg Festival, Sylvain Cambreling, DVD
- Porgy and Bess
with Leona Mitchell, Barbara Hendricks, Florence Quivar, and others, the Cleveland Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Lorin Maazel. This is the first truly complete recording of Porgy and Bess
ever made. It is currently out of print. Decca (London Records in the U.S.)
- The Paul Robeson Legacy
. a collection of spirituals and ballads made famous by Paul Robeson, arranged specially for Willard White. Linn Records
- Willard White - A Gala Celebration
: Carl Davis: Three Spirituals, On The Beach (Whitman), Copland: Old American Songs, opera arias by Mozart & Gounod, Bizet's Pearl Fishers Duet, & Broadway numbers including Some Enchanted Evening and Ol' Man River. With Bonaventura Bottone, tenor, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Choir and The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, cond. Carl Davis, conductor. RLCD 204
- Porgy and Bess
with Cynthia Haymon, Harolyn Blackwell, The Glyndebourne Chorus and London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Simon Rattle. EMI.
- Mozart: Requiem
with Barbara Bonney, Anne Sofie von Otter, Hans Peter Blochwitz, The Monteverdi Choir, The English Baroque Soloists conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner.
- Handel: Messiah
with Yvonne Kenny, Jean Rigby and Thomas Randle, with the Royal Choral Society and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Owain Arwel Hughes