British Bass Richard Angas Dies Suddenly, During Rehearsal for Britten's 'Peter Grimes'

Sad news from the opera world. Richard Angas, one of the leading British basses of his generation has died. Halfway through a rehearsal at English National Opera of Britten's Peter Grimes, he collapsed and was rushed to hospital, where he passed away.

Angas came to prominence at a time when the stellar trio of Robert Lloyd, Gwynne Howell and the late Richard Van Allan were preeminent among British basses, but his was a different path. And it was Angas' unforgettable, and televised, incarnation of Sullivan's Mikado at ENO in 1986 that announced the presence of a major talent.

Yet for all the sheer size and power of his voice, its rather unusual contours, allied to the fact of his extremely vivid acting abilities, meant that--whether by choice or not--he tended to be cast in character roles. He counted King Marke in Wagner's Tristan, Daland in Flying Dutchman and Arkel in Debussy's Pélleas et Mélisande among his roles, but rather than these conventional leads, it is his puffed-up Swallow in Grimes, his befuddled Old Adam in Sullivan's Ruddigore, his sharply etched Pistol in Verdi's Falstaff for which he is best remembered.

Above all, there is that Mikado, happily now available on DVD. It was the revolutionary Jonathan Miller staging that set the operetta as a satire on U.K. society, set in the Grand Hotel somewhere very clearly in England. Angas's booming, chuckling tyrant was a rotund and almost incidentally sadistic country gent.

Had it not been for Eric Idle's wise-cracking Ko-Ko, Angas would have undoubtedly stolen the show. It was a role he reprised in the production on various occasions.

But it established his persona--everything about him was outsize, the character that didn't so much project across the footlights as sail through the audience and bounce off the back wall of the theater, his formidable height and that giant voice.

He leaves behind various recordings, including a DVD of Grimes from Zurich under Franz Welser-Möst, Jonathan Harvey's Wagner Dream and that magnificent, or as W.S. Gilbert would have it, "sublime" Mikado.

Here's a wonderful 1987 documentary about the making of that Mikado--Angas makes a substantial appearance (alongside Felicity Palmer) around 11:16.