Alan Styler

Alan Arthur Styler (1 October 1925 – 1 September 1970) was an English baritone opera singer born in Redditch, Worcestershire, to Arthur Styler and Madeleine née Cook. He had two siblings: a sister, Iris M. Styler, born in 1919, and a brother, John Harold S. Styler, who lived from 1923 to 1994. Styler began studying singing as a teenager before enlisting in the Grenadier Guards at seventeen. He left military service in 1946 and turned his attention to a professional singing career.

In 1947, Styler entered the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as a chorus member, and his first assigned role was Antonio in The Gondoliers. The following year he took on the small part of Second Yeoman in The Yeomen of the Guard and was designated an understudy for the juvenile Gilbert and Sullivan baritone roles. By 1949 he had begun performing regularly as the Counsel in Trial by Jury, Strephon in Iolanthe, Pish-Tush in The Mikado, and Giuseppe in The Gondoliers, while also taking on Mr. Cox in Cox and Box and Grosvenor in Patience. He sustained this range of roles until October 1952, when a three-month illness required him to leave the company temporarily. Returning in 1953, he relinquished Pish-Tush and Grosvenor but added the Lieutenant of the Tower in The Yeomen of the Guard to his repertoire.

Styler appeared on Broadway between 1951 and 1955, with credits that included The Hot Mikado, The Gondoliers, Iolanthe, The Yeomen of the Guard, and Trial by Jury. From 1953 through 1962, his regular stage assignments with D'Oyly Carte centered on Cox, the Counsel, Strephon, the Lieutenant, and Giuseppe. During certain seasons he also returned to Pish-Tush and expanded his portfolio further, adding Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore and Florian in Princess Ida in 1957, and Samuel in The Pirates of Penzance in 1962. A second serious illness in the winter of 1962–1963 again took him away from the company for several months. Upon his return in 1963, he resumed his established roles and, over several seasons, played the Earl of Mountararat in Iolanthe in place of Strephon. A lung operation in 1968 led his doctor to advise him to retire from performing.

Styler recorded the majority of his principal roles with D'Oyly Carte. His discography included Pish-Tush in recordings from 1950 and 1958, Giuseppe in 1950 and 1961, Strephon in 1952 and 1960, Grosvenor in 1952, and Cox in 1961. He also recorded Doctor Daly in The Sorcerer in 1966, a role he never performed on stage with the company. Reviewer Raymond Walker, assessing Styler's 1950 recording as Giuseppe, noted that he possessed a voice of rounded tone and good diction, never sounded forced, and that his rendering of "Rising Early in the Morning" was everything it should be.

In 1960, Styler married fellow D'Oyly Carte performer Veronica Cross, who performed under the stage name Vera Ryan, in Manchester. The couple had three daughters. Outside of his professional life, Styler's leisure interests included fishing and golf. He died in Manchester on 1 September 1970 at the age of forty-four. Members of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and the touring company Gilbert and Sullivan for All gathered to honor him at a memorial service held at St. Paul's Church, Covent Garden.