John Ayldon

John Ayldon (11 December 1943 – 16 February 2013) was an English bass-baritone opera singer and comic actor born in London. He is best known for his work with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, with which he performed the principal bass-baritone roles of the Savoy Operas for more than a decade. His Broadway appearances in 1976 included The Pirates of Penzance, The Hot Mikado, and H.M.S. Pinafore.

Born John Arnold in London, Ayldon relocated to San Francisco in 1954 with his elder sister Molly, attending school there and developing an early interest in the theatre. During those years in California he took part in numerous school productions and secured professional work, among them the title role in a television production of Huckleberry Finn. He returned to England in 1958, joining the Eltham Little Theatre and other amateur societies where he performed in Gilbert and Sullivan productions, among other works. For several years after leaving school he worked in journalism, shipping, and advertising before committing fully to a performing career.

Ayldon joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as a chorister in 1967, soon adding the small role of the Associate in Trial by Jury and occasional appearances as Sergeant Bouncer in Cox and Box, the Learned Judge in Trial by Jury, and the Boatswain in H.M.S. Pinafore. In 1968 he began understudying Donald Adams in the principal bass-baritone roles, covering Dick Deadeye in Pinafore, the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, the Earl of Mountararat in Iolanthe, and the title role in The Mikado. It was during this period that he adopted the stage name Ayldon, as another Equity member was already registered under his birth name of John Arnold. When Adams departed the company in 1969, Ayldon assumed the full roster of principal bass-baritone parts, including Colonel Calverley in Patience, Arac in Princess Ida, Sir Roderic Murgatroyd in Ruddigore, and Sergeant Meryll in The Yeomen of the Guard, later adding Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre in The Sorcerer. At the height of his tenure with D'Oyly Carte, Ayldon gave as many as 350 performances a year.

For the 1975 D'Oyly Carte Centenary Celebration, Ayldon performed all his regular principal roles as well as Phantis in Utopia Limited and the Prince of Monte Carlo in The Grand Duke in concert. That same centennial season he appeared as Arthur Sullivan alongside Peter Pratt as Richard D'Oyly Carte and Kenneth Sandford as Gilbert in Dramatic Licence, a specially written curtain raiser by William Douglas-Home preceding performances of Trial by Jury. In 1977 he performed before Queen Elizabeth II and other members of the Royal Family at the Silver Jubilee Command Performance of H.M.S. Pinafore at Windsor Castle. His recorded credits with D'Oyly Carte include Dick Deadeye in Pinafore (1971), the title role in The Mikado (1973), Mountararat in Iolanthe (1974), the Foreman in Trial by Jury (1975), Phantis in Utopia Limited (1976), the Prince of Monte Carlo in The Grand Duke (1976), Mr. Grinder in The Zoo (1978), and Sergeant Meryll in Yeomen of the Guard (1979). He also appeared as Dick Deadeye in the D'Oyly Carte 1973 television production of H.M.S. Pinafore and was a soloist in the concert video Gilbert & Sullivan's Greatest Hits recorded at the Royal Albert Hall in 1982. The Prince of Monte Carlo's roulette song became a favored concert piece, and Ayldon performed it on the Last Night of the D'Oyly Carte on 27 February 1982.

Following the closure of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1982, Ayldon pursued an active career across opera, musical theatre, concerts, music hall, cabaret, and pantomime. He sang principal roles with Canadian Opera, Welsh National Opera, Dublin Grand Opera, and New Sadler's Wells Opera, taking on parts including Geronimo in Il Matrimonio Segreto, the title role in Don Pasquale, the Sacristan in Tosca, Frank in Die Fledermaus, Schaunard in La bohème, Concian in I quatro rusteghi, and Otec Paloucký in The Kiss. He recorded Old Adam in Ruddigore for New Sadler's Wells Opera in 1987. In 1988 he sang Major Murgatroyd in a concert performance of Act II of Patience at The Proms. In London's West End he made his musical theatre debut understudying and playing the role of Firmin in The Phantom of the Opera, and subsequently played the Pope in Which Witch, a role he also recorded on the 1993 London cast album of that production. He was a guest artist with the revived D'Oyly Carte Opera Company on its tour to California, playing Pooh-Bah in The Mikado, and toured with the concert programmes The Magic of D'Oyly Carte and The Best of Gilbert & Sullivan, the latter frequently conducted by John Owen Edwards and undertaken with Kenneth Sandford, Geoffrey Shovelton, Lorraine Daniels, and others throughout North America during the 1990s.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s Ayldon performed and spoke at the annual International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival and appeared regularly at Gawsworth Old Hall in Cheshire. His partner since 1975 was the tenor Guy Matthews, a fellow former member of the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company; the two entered into a civil partnership in 2007. Ayldon died at the age of 69 in Northampton.