Darrell Louis Fancourt Leverson (8 March 1886 – 29 August 1953), known as Darrell Fancourt, was an English bass-baritone and actor, known for his performances and recordings of the Savoy operas.
After a brief concert career, Fancourt joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, where he starred in more than 10,000 performances over a 33-year period until his death. He regularly played about ten different roles for the company over these years, including the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore, and the title character in The Mikado, which he played more than 3,000 times. Fancourt was famous for his melodramatic style, creating the controversial Mikado laugh that was later adopted by some of his successors. His performances are preserved in nineteen of the company's recordings made between 1923 and 1950.
Early years
Fancourt was born Darrell Louis Fancourt Leverson, the younger son of three children of a Jewish family in Kensington, London. His father, Louis George Leverson (1860–1909), was a diamond merchant who had made a fortune in South Africa. His mother, Amelia (Amy) de Symons, née Lewis-Barned (1865–1931), was "a clever vivacious young artist of the musical comedy type". Both were staunch friends of the arts. His father's sister married Brandon Thomas. Fancourt was baptised into the Church of England when he was fourteen years old.
Fancourt was educated at Bedford School and with a private tutor in Germany. He continued his vocal studies in Germany with Lilli Lehmann. Upon his return to England, he won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. At the Royal Academy, he studied singing with his mother's former teacher, Sir Henry Wood, and Alberto Randegger, and drama with Richard Temple, creator of many of the Savoy roles in which Fancourt was later famous. While a student, Fancourt performed in opera productions at the Academy, creating the role of Tackleton, the toy merchant, in Alexander Mackenzie's opera The Cricket on the Hearth, and playing Colas in Mozart's Bastien und Bastienne, and Benoit in La bohème. The Times thought him "amusing but not noticeably musical" in the last.
Even before completing his studies, Fancourt was building a concert career in London, the British provinces and the European continent. The Times said of an Aeolian Hall recital in 1912, "Mr. Fancourt has some noble notes in his voice, except when he forces it occasionally ... Schubert's Tod und das Mädchen was remarkably well characterized; it was quite his best and he made it into a thing of great beauty." In World War I, Fancourt volunteered for military service and was commissioned in the London Regiment as a lieutenant. In 1917, while still serving in the army, Fancourt married a beautiful Welsh singer, Eleanor Evans, at St Mark's Church, Hamilton Terrace, London. She had been a fellow student at the Royal Academy. After returning to civilian life in 1919, Fancourt sang in a single performance of Prince Igor in Sir Thomas Beecham's opera season at Covent Garden as Prince Galitsky under the baton of Albert Coates. This was his only professional appearance in a grand opera, and his only paid acting experience up to that point. In the same year, he appeared as a soloist at the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts and in oratorio elsewhere in London.
Fancourt joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in May 1920 to succeed Frederick Hobbs, who had announced his decision to leave the company. Fancourt went on for Hobbs as Mountararat in Iolanthe, Arac in Princess Ida and the title character in The Mikado. In June 1920, Hobbs left, and Fancourt took over the bass-baritone roles, including the above parts, Dick Deadeye in H.M.S. Pinafore, the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, Colonel Calverley in Patience, Sir Roderic Murgatroyd in Ruddigore and Sergeant Meryll in The Yeomen of the Guard. In 1921, when Cox and Box and The Sorcerer were revived, Fancourt added the roles of Sergeant Bouncer and Sir Marmaduke Pointdextre to his repertoire. He also appeared as the Usher in Trial by Jury in 1926, but he thought himself "simply bloody" in the role and soon dropped it. In 1921, his wife, Eleanor Evans, joined the company as a chorister, also playing some smaller principal soprano roles. She was nicknamed "Snookie" in the company; and, according to fellow D'Oyly Carte performer Derek Oldham, "she was so beautiful, was Snookie! We all fell for her, and we gave Darrell a busy time keeping us 'off'." Later in Fancourt's career, his wife was made the company's stage director and director of productions.