Peter Glossop

Glossop had a wide range of repertory. Although not, perhaps, the most subtle of actors, his committed vocal delivery more than compensated. He brought conviction to everything he sang, and his extrovert personality enhanced all his stage performances, even if the man himself suffered from occasional insecurities. As Frank Granville-Barker noted in Opera magazine in May 1969: "As he talks – and he talks readily, vehemently – humour keeps breaking in, the Bacchus face smiles more readily, and one gradually realises there is also a shy, vulnerable side to his nature."

Peter Glossop was born on July 6 1928 in the Wadsley suburb of Sheffield, an area best known at the time for its lunatic asylum. His father, Cyril, was a manager at a cutlery factory, but died of tuberculosis when Peter was five, forcing his mother, Violet, to train as a secretary. An elder brother, Harry, died of the same illness at the age of 16, and a sister, Doreen, later contracted it. Peter was educated at High Storrs Grammar School in the city. Fortunately Violet (who later committed suicide) found secretarial employment at the Lyceum Theatre, and by the age of 13 Peter was being smuggled in to see every visiting show. "I went to see Rigoletto and I was thrilled," he recalled. "I was completely taken over by opera."

After an enjoyable stint of National Service – with the Army in Dusseldorf immediately after the war – he joined the National Provincial Bank in Sheffield as a clerk. He also sang with the Sheffield Operatic Society, making his stage debut with them as Dr Coppelius (Tales of Hoffman) in 1949. He studied singing locally with Joseph Hislop and, after several auditions, joined the Sadler's Wells chorus in 1952.

In London he continued his studies with Leonard Mosley and Eva Rich, and within a year was taking small roles with the company. By 1955 he was a company principal. For five years he sang most of the leading Verdi baritone roles with the company, making his name particularly as Rigoletto and Di Luna (Il trovatore).

Throughout the 1950s Sadler's Wells Opera carefully nurtured many future international careers. Under conductors of the quality of Colin Davis and Alexander Gibson, singers learnt and then performed roles that were suitable to their particular voices. Glossop built up a repertoire that included Gerard (Andrea Chenier), Scarpia (Tosca) and Onegin (Eugene Onegin). But it was in Verdi that he rightly won critical acclaim.

In 1961 Glossop won the gold medal at the International Operatic Competition in Sofia, which started his international career. He was immediately engaged by the Royal Opera (thus causing some unworthy criticism in the press for disloyalty to Sadler's Wells) to sing Demetrius in Benjamin Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream both in London and at that year's Edinburgh Festival.

The era was rich with some exceptional baritones (Gobbi, Bacquier, Fischer-Dieskau, Evans), so it was a brave decision by Glossop to leave Sadler's Wells and commit himself to an international career. His courage was well rewarded. Glossop sang a wide variety of roles with the Royal Opera: Rodrigo (Don Carlos), Michele (Il tabarro), Tonio (Pagliacci, opposite Placido Domingo's Canio), Don Giovanni, Simon Boccanegra and Marcello (La bohème).

In 1964 Geraint Evans found the title role in Rigoletto uncomfortable, and after a few performances Glossop succeeded him. The new production was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and conducted by Georg Solti – it was Solti who asked Glossop to take over immediately. Without any rehearsal, Glossop arrived on stage to discover that the soprano had also been changed at the last minute. Undeterred, he sang magnificently, and Evans generously commented in his autobiography: "What a fine job Peter made of it."

The two baritones had a more agreeable experience when, in the same theatre, they were performing The Barber of Seville in 1966. Evans wanted a dog for some stage business, and Glossop arrived the next day with his much-loved fluffy white miniature poodle. During the performance Evans came through a door on to the stage and Glossop (off stage) whistled for his pet. As rehearsed, it bolted on cue to its master, bringing Evans in its wake.

But Glossop's most acclaimed interpretations at the Garden were two of the great Verdi roles: di Luna, and Iago in Otello. In November 1964 Carlo Maria Giulini conducted a new production of Il trovatore with two rising British operatic stars in central roles. The soprano Gwyneth Jones sang Leonora, and Glossop Count di Luna. The production (by Visconti) was acclaimed worldwide.  [Program from the revival the following year is shown below. The 1964 cast was much the same, but included Joseph Rouleau, Bruno Prevedi, and Giulietta Simionato, and has been issued on CD. In other performances in 1965, the cast included Ivo Vinco and Fiorenza Cossotto.]

See my interview with Carlo Bergonzi

Glossop made his debut at both La Scala (1965) and the Metropolitan New York (1968) in Rigoletto, having served his apprenticeship as a Verdian in the notoriously hostile atmosphere of Italian theatres such as Parma, Palermo and Naples. [Note: the details about his Met debut are not correct. The item later in this box sorts it out.] He gamely came to the assistance of La Scala in 1967, when Gian Giacomo Guelfi cancelled singing Tonio in Pagliacci. Glossop learnt the role in a day and a half and flew to Milan for the dress rehearsal. Von Karajan heard Glossop in Pagliacci. Fascinated by his intensity and powerful on-stage personality, the conductor immediately engaged Glossop in the role for the 1964 Salzburg Festival. The opera was filmed, and von Karajan – never a man to over-praise a singer – was enthusiastic about how Glossop sang the famous prologue, "powerfully, and straight at the camera".

Glossop returned to Salzburg in 1970 when von Karajan conducted him in one of the most testing of all baritone roles, Iago. The production was an early attempt by von Karajan to produce an opera on stage and then to record it for disc and film. Despite a remarkable cast (Jon Vickers as Otello, and Mirella Freni as Desdemona), the 1973 EMI film never really worked. Glossop's Iago, however, was highly praised, and he was often asked to sing it at Covent Garden – perhaps most memorably in 1977, under Zubin Mehta and opposite Vickers.

He continued to perform into the mid-1980s when, after his second divorce, he lost all faith in his own abilities. He retired to a village near Axminster, in Devon, to teach and lecture, but became extremely lonely, estranged from the international life he had once known. Throat cancer was diagnosed – a cruel illness for anyone, but especially for a singer. Eventually his first wife and her new partner moved to be near him.

In 2004 Glossop published an autobiography, The Story of a Yorkshire Baritone, a frank and poignant account of his journey from the industrial North to the grand opera stages of the world.

Peter Glossop married first, in 1955, the opera singer Joyce Blackham. The marriage was dissolved in 1977. That year he married, secondly, Michelle Amos, a ballet dancer 26 years his junior, from whom he was divorced in 1986. A daughter of his first marriage died a few hours after her birth, while another child was still-born. He is survived by two daughters of his second marriage.