Page 94 - Redditch People

Redditch People

Life and Times of Gillian Knight

Gillian Knight was born in Redditch on 1 November 1934 and was educated in
Birmingham. She then won a five year scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, where
she studied with May Blythe and Roy Henderson. Whilst still at the Academy, she sang in
concerts, oratorio and on television with the Linden Singers.

In August 1959 she joined the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company, going immediately on tour
in eight of the leading contralto roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan repertory. In September
of that year, on the death of Ann Drummond-Grant, she became the principal contralto
for the company. An early review from The Times wrote, “Many good Savoyards have
regretted Gilbert’s unkind lampooning of the unattractive elderly female, stouter than she
used to be, with a caricature of a face and so on; and we have observed with gratitude
that Buttercup, Ruth, Lady Jane and their equivalents are acted this season by a pleasing
and personable young lady … Miss Gillian Knight’s Buttercup is in itself an iconoclastic
impersonation.”

Whilst with the Company, she married the master carpenter Trevor Morrison in 1960 and
left in April 1965, shortly before the birth of their daughter Rebecca who later also became
an opera singer.

It is interesting to note that during her time with the D’Oyly Carte Opera Company she
would often have played opposite Alan Styler, who was also born in Redditch on 1 October
1925 and who played the lead baritone roles with the Company until his retirement in
1968 following a lung operation.

In 1968 she joined Sadler’s Wells Opera making her debut as Ragone in Count Ory and
The Times noted that she “has a formidable stage presence…and a superbly articulated
contralto to match.” She also played roles in Madama Butterfly, The Barber of Seville and
Rigoletto. After playing the lead role in Carmen she was soon invited to play at the Royal
Opera House.

1970 saw her Covent Garden debut as the Page in Salome and in the same year took over
the role of Carmen and in a later revival took over the same role from Grace Bumbry, she
also played this role opposite Placido Domingo. She has performed in many operas at
Covent Garden including Eugene Onegin, Die Meistersinger, Der Rosenkavalier and La
Traviata. In 1992 she performed the role of the depraved Herodias in the Peter Hall
production of Salome. She returned to the Royal Opera House in 2003 to sing in Elektra.

Her grand opera career has taken her to the Paris Opera, the Tanglewood Festival in
America and Frankfurt and Basel. She has also sung with Scottish Opera and Opera North.

Throughout her career she has always been in demand to sing in Gilbert & Sullivan. In
1989 she recorded seven roles in a BBC radio series of the operas and in 1993 she was
Ruth in the Welsh National Opera recording of The Pirates of Penzance, she has also
performed this role with Lyric Opera of Chicago in 2004. Beginning in the 1990’s she
toured in several productions with the Carl Rosa Opera Company. She has also performed
at a number of the International Gilbert & Sullivan Festivals at Buxton in Derbyshire. This
has enabled her to sing alongside her daughter Rebecca Knight and in 1998 she
performed as Katisha, with Rebecca singing the role of Pitti Sing in The Mikado.

During a radio interview in Chicago in 2004 the host noted, “Gillian Knight is one of those
great personalities who simply go about their business season after season, giving

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