Dennis Noble

Dennis Noble was a British baritone born William Ewart Noble on 25 September 1898 in Bristol, England. Because his father shared the same given name, the younger William was known within the family as Ewart Noble. He adopted the professional name Dennis Noble after spotting a Dennis lorry passing by during his early career years. He died on 14 March 1966 in Javea, north of Alicante, Spain, at the age of 67.

Noble received his early musical training at Bristol Cathedral's Choir School under Dr. Hubert Hunt. During the First World War he served in France with the Royal Bucks Hussars, was invalided out, and then returned to the front to perform with the Fifth Army's entertainment unit, known as "The Gaieties." That unit gave him his first stage appearance, at the opera house in Lille, in the musical Aladdin. In 1923 he was invited to join the choir of Westminster Abbey and sang at the wedding of H.R.H. the Duke of York and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in April of that year. That same year he married Marjorie Booth, a contralto. His vocal studies were undertaken with Dinh Gilly and Mattia Battistini.

His operatic career at Covent Garden began after conductor Percy Pitt heard him singing at a cinema and arranged for him to audition. Following hurried stage-craft instruction from Aylmer Buesst, Noble made his Covent Garden debut as Silvio in Pagliacci. He subsequently added Rigoletto, Papageno in The Magic Flute, and Prince Aphron in The Golden Cockerel to his repertoire. In March 1926 he sang in Elgar's The Apostles in Manchester under Sir Hamilton Harty. His wife died of a brain tumour in April 1928, followed shortly by the death of his mother, yet Noble sang in six roles at Covent Garden that season. In October 1928, in Leeds, he performed in Delius's Sea Drift and Parry's Job under Sir Thomas Beecham, and in November he recorded Sea Drift under Beecham's direction.

On 25 June 1929 Noble created the role of Achior in Eugene Goossens's opera Judith. That October, at a concert honoring Frederick Delius, he sang in Sea Drift and in Act III of A Village Romeo and Juliet, a work he also performed in its first broadcast on 20 May 1932. On 9 June 1931 he sang the elder Germont in La traviata, a performance in which his rendition of "Di Provenza" drew so many curtain calls that his colleagues Rosa Ponselle and Dino Borgioli left the stage. On 8 October 1931 he participated in the premiere of William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast, a work he recorded twice and with which he became particularly associated, including a 1953 performance commemorating the coronation of Elizabeth II. In December 1931 he married Marjorie Bain, daughter of Sir Ernest Bain. In September 1932 he sang in The Dream of Gerontius at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester.

Noble's Broadway career brought him to New York in September 1934, when he appeared alongside Marie Burke in The Great Waltz, a production that ran for 298 performances before continuing on a United States tour. That engagement constitutes his verified Broadway credit, spanning 1934 to 1935. In March 1935 he sang in The Marriage of Figaro in Philadelphia with Maria Kurenko, Julius Huehn, and Josephine Antoine, with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Fritz Reiner.

Back in Britain, Noble continued to accumulate significant operatic premieres. In November 1936 he sang Sam Weller when Albert Coates's opera Pickwick became the first opera televised by the BBC. On 17 March 1937 he created the title role in Ferruccio Busoni's Doktor Faust in its first English performance, a concert version at Queen's Hall, London, conducted by Adrian Boult. On 18 April 1937 he appeared in the British premiere of Respighi's Maria egiziaca, and on 24 June 1938 he created Don José in Goossens's Don Juan de Manara alongside Lawrence Tibbett and Norman Allin. On 20 October 1938 he sang in the world premiere of George Lloyd's The Serf under Albert Coates, and in March 1939 he participated in the British premiere of Hindemith's Mathis der Maler.

During the Second World War, Noble entertained British troops in France alongside Gracie Fields and Sir Seymour Hicks, and later served three months in the Persian Gulf with ENSA alongside Miriam Licette, Walter Widdop, and Ivor Newton. At home he appeared in 87 performances of Chu Chin Chow. In 1943 he sang Germont in La traviata with Joan Hammond and Figaro in The Barber of Seville with Heddle Nash and Norman Allin. In 1945 he recorded The Dream of Gerontius under Sir Malcolm Sargent. In 1946 he appeared in the musical 1066 and All That alongside Michael Redgrave, Googie Withers, and Ivor Novello.

Noble's second marriage ended in divorce, and he subsequently married Miriam Ferris, an actress. In 1951 he underwent two operations for bowel cancer. From 1954 to 1959 he held the position of professor of singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. His third wife died in 1957. In 1960 he married for a fourth time, to Sylvia McCormack, and in the 1960s he taught singing at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. On 19 November 1956 he appeared on Desert Island Discs, selecting his own recording of "Di Provenza" as one of his chosen discs. Throughout his career Noble was recognized for his enunciation and diction, worked across opera, oratorio, musical comedy, and song from the First World War through the late 1950s, and became the most prolific radio broadcaster of his era. He left an extensive discography and appears on The Record of Singing. His film credits include Spanish Eyes from 1930.