Richard Walker, (18 November 1897 – 26 August 1989) was an English opera singer and actor, best known for his performances in the baritone roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Between 1932 and 1939 Walker was married to D'Oyly Carte chorister Ena Martin. He married the company's principal soprano Helen Roberts in 1944.
After serving in the Coldstream Guards, Walker began his career in touring in concerts and revues. He joined D'Oyly Carte at age 27 and remained with the company for 25 years. At first playing mostly smaller roles and understudying larger ones, by 1942 Walker had been promoted as a principal baritone of the company, playing roles like Pooh Bah in The Mikado. His total of thirty-five Savoy Opera roles is the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company's all-time record.
After leaving the company, Walker and Roberts were engaged in Australia by J. C. Williamson to Australia and New Zealand throughout the 1950s and early 1960s in Gilbert and Sullivan as well as other works in their repertory. He also stage directed. In the early 1970s, they toured for more than four years in the original Australian production of My Fair Lady and presented Gilbert and Sullivan in two-person entertainments throughout the United States and Canada.
Life and career
Richard Walker was born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. He served for a time in the Coldstream Guards. Walker studied singing at the Midland Conservatoire of Music and earned a second degree (Licentiate) at the London College of Music. He began his career by touring for two years in concerts and revues.
D'Oyly Carte years
Walker joined the chorus of the smaller of D'Oyly Carte's two companies on tour in 1924. Soon he was filling in for baritone roles such as Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore and the Lieutenant of the Tower in The Yeomen of the Guard. He also played Giorgio and then Antonio in The Gondoliers. He transferred to D'Oyly Carte's principal company in 1927, playing Antonio, and, from 1929, Guron in Princess Ida.
During the 1930s and early 1940s, Walker played a variety of parts, both in his own right and as an occasional substitute. His own roles from 1932 were the Usher in Trial by Jury, Bobstay in H.M.S. Pinafore, Samuel in The Pirates of Penzance, Guron, and Antonio, which he performed in a BBC broadcast from the Savoy Theatre during the company's 1932–33 London season. From 1935 he shared the role of Bouncer in Cox and Box with Darrell Fancourt. In 1937 he added the role of the Notary in The Sorcerer. In 1940 he switched from Bouncer to Cox in Cox and Box, and from Usher to Counsel for the Plaintiff in Trial by Jury. He also took on the small roles of Major Murgatroyd in Patience and Second Citizen, and the next year, Second Yeomen in The Yeomen of the Guard. Roles in which he occasionally deputised for Fancourt or Sydney Granville were King Hildebrand in Princess Ida, the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance, Earl Mountararat and Private Willis in Iolanthe, Colonel Calverley in Patience, Sir Roderic Murgatroyd in Ruddigore, the title role and Pooh-Bah in The Mikado, Wilfred Shadbolt in The Yeomen of the Guard, and Don Alhambra in The Gondoliers.
In 1942, Walker succeeded Granville as principal "heavy" baritone, playing the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance, Shadbolt, Don Alhambra, and Pooh-Bah. In succeeding years he added to these the Usher, Private Willis and Boatswain. He filled in for Fancourt from time to time as Mountararat, Colonel Calverley, and the Mikado, and he also occasionally played Grosvenor in Patience. The Gilbert and Sullivan historian Colin Prestige wrote of him, "Richard Walker knew exactly the limit between comedy and buffoonery. ... His Wilfred Shadbolt was sardonic, his Don Alhambra del Bolero urbane, his Pooh-Bah sanctimonious." Walker married a fellow company member, Helen Roberts, on 31 July 1944. Earlier that month, the two found themselves very close to an exploding German rocket near Piccadilly Circus, as they approached a restaurant. They were not seriously hurt, but just before they went on stage that evening as Wilfred and Elsie in The Yeomen of the Guard, Walker proposed marriage.