Douglas, Nigel [Leigh Pemberton, Nigel Douglas ]

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[Leigh Pemberton, Nigel Douglas ]

(b Lenham, Kent, May 9, 1929). English tenor . He studied in Vienna with Alfred Piccaver, making his début in 1959 at the Kammeroper as Rodolfo (La bohème), then singing at the Volksoper. Later he created L’Heureux in Sutermeister’s Madame Bovary(1967, Zürich), Philip in Gardner’s The Visitors (1972, Aldeburgh) and Basil in Mathias’s The Servants for the WNO (1980), with which he also sang Alwa (Lulu), the Captain (Wozzeck), Loge and Herod. With the ENO he sang the Devil in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve (1988) and the Earl of Kent in Reimann’s Lear (1989), both first British stage productions. A noted exponent of Britten’s operas, he has sung Peter Grimes, Vere, Aschenbach and Lechmere (Owen Wingrave), which he created both on BBC Television (1971) and at Covent Garden (1973). He occasionally directed the New Sadler’s Wells Opera and provided the company with new English texts. He also sings, translates and directs operetta. The dryness of his voice is offset by superb diction and the excellence of his acting....