Walter Hyde

Walter Hyde (6 February 1875 – 11 November 1951) was a British tenor, actor, and voice teacher born in the Kings Norton area of Birmingham, the third son of Henry Michael Hyde, a carpenter, and Elizabeth née Hiley. His twin brothers, Harry and Charles, were two years his senior. Hyde served as a chorister at the Chapel Royal in London for six years before enrolling in 1895 among the first students at the restructured Music Department of the Birmingham and Midland Institute. He subsequently won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition under Joseph Parry and Charles Villiers Stanford, harmony and orchestration with Walter Parratt, and received vocal instruction from Gustave Garcia.

Upon graduating, Hyde was engaged by the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden to create the role of Borrachio in the world premiere of Stanford's Much Ado About Nothing on 30 May 1901. The following year he created the role of Lionel Bland in the comic opera My Lady Molly, first at Brighton in 1902 and then at Terry's Theatre in London on 14 March 1903, marking his West End debut. In December 1906 he stepped in at short notice to play Squire Thornhill in the London premiere of a comic opera adaptation of The Vicar of Wakefield at the Prince of Wales Theatre, after the originally cast Irish tenor proved incomprehensible to audiences. On 21 August 1907 he opened as Andrea in The Three Kisses at the Apollo Theatre opposite Caroline Hatchard. That same year he recorded excerpts from Gilbert and Sullivan operas, singing Ralph Rackstraw in H.M.S. Pinafore and Nanki-Poo in The Mikado for Odeon Records, and had earlier recorded H.M.S. Pinafore material for the Russell Hunting Record Company. From 1905 onward he also made recordings for Edison Records, including duets with bass-baritone Peter Dawson.

Hyde's transition into grand opera came when his performance as Bandmaster van Vuyt in Miss Hook of Holland impressed conductor Percy Pitt, who introduced him to Hans Richter. Richter cast Hyde as Froh in Das Rheingold and Siegmund in Die Walküre for a 1908 English-language production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Royal Opera House, launching a Wagnerian career that would continue for the remainder of his performing life. He appeared regularly at Covent Garden between 1908 and 1924. In January 1910 he sang Walther in an English-language Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg under Richter, and for Thomas Beecham's first Covent Garden season that February he sang Sali in Frederick Delius's A Village Romeo and Juliet. Beecham also revived Sullivan's Ivanhoe in March 1910 with Hyde in the title role. For Beecham's second Covent Garden season Hyde sang Laertes in Ambroise Thomas's Hamlet, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Erik in Der Fliegende Holländer, and appeared in Gounod's Faust. In May 1909 he had made his Italian opera debut at the Royal Opera House as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, a role he reprised in Baltimore in March 1910 alongside Siegmund in Die Walküre during a tour with the Metropolitan Opera Company through New York and the Midwestern United States. In November 1909 he sang in Berlioz's The Damnation of Faust at a Proms concert under Henry Wood, a performance repeated two days later as a Royal Command Performance at Windsor Castle.

Hyde's Broadway appearance came during a period of nearly two years he spent in America from late 1911, touring in light opera and giving concerts. In 1912 he appeared as the title character in a revival of Reginald De Koven's Robin Hood at the New Amsterdam Theatre and the Knickerbocker Theatre in New York. The production subsequently traveled to the Princess Theatre in Toronto in March 1913. On returning to England in 1913, Hyde toured in Wagnerian tenor roles before singing Pelléas in September 1913 in the first English-language performance of Debussy's Pelléas and Mélisande, staged in Birmingham. In early 1914 he was engaged to sing the title role in Lohengrin at the Hungarian State Opera House; a misunderstanding over the performance language led the organizers to substitute Die Meistersinger, which Hyde sang in English.

During the war years Hyde joined Lena Ashwell's Firing Line concert party in autumn 1914 and subsequently became a member of the Beecham Opera Company in 1915. With Beecham at Manchester in 1917 he sang Rothesay in the first English-language performance of Bizet's The Fair Maid of Perth. In May 1917 he sang Dick Johnson in Puccini's Girl of the Golden West in English at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, where in September he appeared in the first English performance of Rimsky-Korsakov's The Maid of Pskov. In June 1918 he sang Phoebus in Bach's cantata Phoebus and Pan during Beecham's Summer Season at Drury Lane, as well as Siegmund in Die Walküre. By 1909 Hyde had also established himself as an oratorio singer at the Hereford and Birmingham Festivals, continuing in that capacity through the Leeds Festival of 1928.

On 14 June 1905 Hyde married Emma "Esme" Elizabeth Atherden, a soprano, at St Leonard's Church in Marston Green near Solihull. The couple had three children: Denis Atherden Hyde, Walter Siegmund Hyde, and Joan Valerie Hyde. In his later years Hyde served as Professor of Voice at the Guildhall School of Music, where his students included baritones Geraint Evans and Owen Brannigan.