Kenneth Shenton writes:
A BRITISH singer with sustained international prominence, Stephen Roberts laid the foundations of his career as a Lay Vicar at Westminster Abbey, from 1972 to 1977. He had the ability to combine a powerful vocal range with a commanding presence, and his voice, flexible, yet richly coloured, was never without a little of the dramatic nuance that he came to use so skilfully.
Intensely proud of his Welsh heritage, Stephen Pritchard Roberts was born in the seaside resort of Rhyl on 8 February 1949. He went on to study at the Royal College of Music. There, his organ teacher was Harold Darke, and his vocal coaches were Gerald English and Redvers Llewellyn. The runner-up for the 1972 Kathleen Ferrier Memorial Award, he won a Boise Scholarship, which allowed him to refine further his vocal technique in the company of Helga Mott. Before the concert platform increasingly claimed him, his operatic roles included Ubaldo in Gluck’s Armide at the 1982 Spitalfields Festival, and Aeneas in Israeli Opera’s production of Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, in Tel Aviv.
Earning plaudits from critics and public alike for his youthful solo lieder interpretations, he also showcased Bruno Turner’s vivid recreations of rarefied medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque repertoire as a member of the specialist a cappella male vocal ensemble, Pro Cantiones Antiqua. With them, he toured India, Japan, and Sri Lanka. He also visited Mexico and Central America with the Amaryllis Consort, of which he was a founding member. Whether it was Mahler in Paris or Mozart in Washington, his singing rarely failed to make an impact.
Over the years, he became a noted stalwart of the choral-society tradition. He made his solo debut with David Willcocks and the Bach Choir in 1976, and rarely missed their annual performance of Bach’s St Matthew Passion. A familiar and popular contributor to both the Three Choirs and Three Spires Festivals, he was also a regular performer at the Proms. He relished the opportunities to explore much unfamiliar repertoire.
Happily, many of his performances endure, courtesy of several television appearances and numerous recordings. Here, nestling neatly alongside standard repertoire, such as choral works by Handel, Britten, Vaughan Williams, and Elgar, are more newly minted creations, including Tippett’s King Priam and Penderecki’s St Luke Passion. Collaborators on disc included a young Aled Jones, and Ian Partridge, whom Roberts joined for a sublime survey of songs by Gerald Finzi and his friends. As a longstanding member of the teaching staff at the Royal College of Music, he helped to mould the creative personalities of many of this country’s leading practitioners.
Stephen Roberts died late last year, aged 73.
