Elizabeth Bainbridge

When British opera companies in the 1960s and ’70s required a low-voiced mezzo for a matronly supporting role, the go-to singer was Elizabeth Bainbridge. With a deep, rich sound and characterful presence, she excelled in operatic women who combine warm hearts with a formidable demeanour. And it went back to her Northern roots. Born 1930 in Lancashire, she left school at 14 to work in the local cotton mills before managing to get a place at London’s Guildhall School of Music. After a professional debut in 1963, she joined Covent Garden as a company member, singing a conveyor-belt of mezzo roles: some grandly dramatic like Amneris in Verdi’s Aida, but more often homely housekeepers and publicans like Marcellina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, Auntie in Britten’s Peter Grimes, the Hostess in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, and Mistress Quickly in Verdi’s Falstaff.