Darrell Fancourt

Darrell Louis Fancourt Leverson, known professionally as Darrell Fancourt, was born on 8 March 1886 in Kensington, London, the younger of three children in a Jewish family. His father, Louis George Leverson, was a diamond merchant who had accumulated a fortune in South Africa, and his mother, Amelia de Symons, was described as a vivacious artist with a musical comedy background. Both parents were supporters of the arts. His father's sister married the playwright Brandon Thomas. Fancourt was baptised into the Church of England at the age of fourteen.

Fancourt received his early education at Bedford School and with a private tutor in Germany, where he also pursued vocal studies under Lilli Lehmann. Returning to England, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied singing with Sir Henry Wood and Alberto Randegger, and drama with Richard Temple, who had originated many of the Savoy bass-baritone roles Fancourt would later make his own. As a student, he created the role of Tackleton in Alexander Mackenzie's opera The Cricket on the Hearth, and performed as Colas in Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne and as Benoit in La bohème. Before completing his studies, he had already begun building a concert career in London, the British provinces, and continental Europe. A 1912 recital at the Aeolian Hall drew notice from The Times, which praised his characterization of Schubert's Tod und das Mädchen as a particular highlight.

During World War I, Fancourt volunteered for military service and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the London Regiment. In 1917, while still serving, he married Eleanor Evans, a Welsh singer and fellow Royal Academy student, at St Mark's Church, Hamilton Terrace, London. After returning to civilian life in 1919, he sang the role of Prince Galitsky in a single performance of Prince Igor during Sir Thomas Beecham's opera season at Covent Garden, conducted by Albert Coates. That appearance marked both his only professional engagement in grand opera and his only paid acting work to that point. That same year he appeared as a soloist at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts and in oratorio performances in London.

In May 1920, Fancourt joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company to succeed Frederick Hobbs, initially taking on the roles of Mountararat in Iolanthe, Arac in Princess Ida, and the title character in The Mikado. When Hobbs departed in June 1920, Fancourt assumed the full range of bass-baritone parts, including Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore, the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, Colonel Calverley in Patience, Sir Roderic Murgatroyd in Ruddigore, and Sergeant Meryll in The Yeomen of the Guard. The revivals of Cox and Box and The Sorcerer in 1921 added Sergeant Bouncer and Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre to his repertoire. He also appeared as the Usher in Trial by Jury beginning in 1926, though he later dropped the role, having judged his own performance unsatisfactory. In 1921, his wife Eleanor joined the company as a chorister and in smaller principal soprano roles; she was later appointed the company's stage director and director of productions.

Fancourt remained with D'Oyly Carte for 33 years, accumulating well over 10,000 performances until his death. He played the title role in The Mikado more than 3,000 times alone. Over the course of his tenure, he undertook seven North American tours with the company, which brought him to Broadway, where he appeared in productions including The Pirates of Penzance, Trial by Jury, The Hot Mikado, Patience, and The Yeomen of the Guard between 1934 and 1951. His performances were preserved across nineteen company recordings made between 1923 and 1950.

Fancourt was an English bass-baritone recognized for his diction and vocal technique, and he became particularly associated with his interpretation of the Mikado of Japan. He developed what became known as the Mikado laugh, a distinctive and melodramatic vocal device that generated both admiration and controversy. According to Frederic Lloyd, who joined D'Oyly Carte in 1951, Fancourt had deliberately reworked the Mikado's stage business because certain earlier movements struck him as a Fagin-like caricature, something he found objectionable given his Jewish background. Lloyd reported that Rupert D'Oyly Carte and stage director J. M. Gordon were pleased with the new interpretation. Jessie Bond, who had played Pitti-Sing at the opera's 1885 premiere, was critical, objecting to what she saw as an unrecognizable departure from the original characterization. The Times offered mixed assessments over the years, at one point suggesting the interpretation moved farthest from Savoy tradition, and at another crediting Fancourt with adding a genuinely terrifying dimension to the role. The Manchester Guardian praised the freshness of his approach, and the Pall Mall Gazette described his Mikado as possessing a voice like a steam hammer and a fiendish, gurgling laugh that had to be heard to be appreciated. The laugh was later adopted by some of his successors in the role.

Critic J. C. Trewin described Fancourt as the lord of Gilbert-and-Sullivan playing, calling him both a fine singer and a zestful actor with a dominating personality, and singled out his performance of the song When the Night Wind Howls in Ruddigore as one of the glories of Gilbert and Sullivan in the contemporary theatre. The Times echoed that assessment, noting that those who heard his singing of that number would not forget it. Darrell Fancourt died on 29 August 1953.