Jennifer Vyvyan

At three years old, Jennifer Vyvyan won a ball for singing in a local talent competition. Twenty-three years later, she became the first British singer to win the prestigious Concours de Genève and a far more significant prize: a career as an operatic soprano. Born in 1925 in Broadstairs, Kent, Vyvyan came of age in a postwar England dominated by Benjamin Britten. She began her career in the Glyndebourne Chorus, but it was her close association with the composer’s music and his English Opera Group that helped cement her reputation. Roles including Lady Rich (Gloriana), Governess (The Turn of the Screw), and Tytania (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) were created for her, and she also collaborated with William Walton and Arthur Bliss. But Vyvyan’s repertoire extended well beyond contemporary opera. Her clean, clear soprano contributed to a revival of works from the Baroque era by Handel and Purcell, and she was also in demand as an oratorio soloist. Vyvyan worked at the highest level, internationally, singing for the conductors Leonard Bernstein and Carlo Maria Giulini among many others. Her early death at just 49 cut her short in her prime.