Walter Widdop
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Walter Widdop, born: 19 April 1892, Norland, near Halifax, Yorkshire, was a British tenor.
His professional debut was as Radames (Aida) in 1923 with the British National Opera Company in Leeds. The following year he made his debut as Siegfried at Covent Garden, and remained in demand for Heldentenor roles and the heavier Italian parts also.
In 1938 he was one of the four tenor soloists in Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music, written to celebrate Sir Henry Wood’s silver jubilee as a conductor. In the solo lines written for them Heddle Nash and Frank Titterton, with their lighter tenor voices preceded Widdop (his solo line was ‘Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins’), with the plaintive tones of Parry Jones concluding the section.
During the Second World War he toured South Africa Canada and the Middle East for ENSA.
In July 1949 he sang the title role in Parsifal conducted by Sir Adrian Boult at the Royal Albert Hall.
He died on 6 September 1949 in Hampstead.
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