Obituary,
Anne Howells (1941-2022)
The British mezzo Anne Howells, who excelled as Octavian and Dorabella and also created roles in operas by Nicholas Maw and Mark-Anthony Turnage, has died aged 81.
Born in Southport in 1941, Howells trained with Frederic Cox at the Royal Manchester College of Music, where she took part in the first English staging of Gluck’s Paride ed Elena. Her first professional appearance was as Flora in La traviata for Welsh National Opera, which she went on to sing for her Royal Opera House debut the following year; she appeared regularly at Covent Garden throughout the late 1960s and 70s, in roles including Rosina, Meg Page, Mélisande, Despina and Cherubino. Another Mozart role, Dorabella in Così fan tutte, became something of a signature: although Howells confessed to finding the character uncongenial, she made several high-profile debuts in the part in the US, at houses including the Chicago Lyric Opera and the Metropolitan Opera.
A role which lay far closer to her heart was Octavian in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier, which she sang opposite Kiri Te Kanawa’s Marschallin in a filmed production from Covent Garden in 1985 under Sir Georg Solti; Howells had previously recorded the smaller role of Annina for the same conductor in the late 1960s, and she and Te Kanawa both had cameos as Flower-Maidens on his 1971 Parsifal (with René Kollo in the title-role, Christa Ludwig as Kundry, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as Amfortas). Her swaggering portrayal of Maffio Orsini in John Copley’s 1980 staging of Donizetti’s Lucrezia Borgia (opposite Joan Sutherland as Lucrezia) is also preserved on video, as is her graceful, touching Annio in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's 1980 film of La clemenza di Tito.
Howells’s relatively small but distinguished discography included roles on three Grammy-winning recordings: Ascagne on Colin Davis’s first recording of Berlioz’s Les Troyens in 1969, Mrs McLean in Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah for Kent Nagano in 1994, and Mother Goose in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress for John Eliot Gardiner in 1997. She also made a number of significant recordings of baroque and classical repertoire, including Cavalli’s Ormindo with Raymond Leppard and Haydn’s Nelson Mass with Richard Hickox.
Howells was a passionate advocate of new works, creating the roles of Cathleen Sweeney in Nicholas Maw’s The Rising of the Moon, Lena in Richard Rodney Bennett’s Victory (both in 1970), and Mrs Heegan in Mark-Anthony Turnage’s The Silver Tassie in 2000. She also sang Lady de Hautdesert on the world premiere recording of Harrison Birtwistle’s Gawain in 1994, with Opera News observing that Howells ‘makes her mark in the ungrateful role with integrity’. Her repertoire also included Thea in Tippett’s The Knot Garden and Helen in his King Priam (she later portrayed the ‘face that launched a thousand ships’ in Offenbach’s distinctly less heavyweight La belle Hélène to great acclaim for English National Opera and Scottish Opera in the mid-1990s).
After retiring from the stage, Howells took up a teaching position at the Royal Academy of Music (where her students included the Lithuanian mezzo Jurgita Adamonytė), and also pursued a passion for creative writing. She died in Hampshire on 18th May.
An earlier version of this article erroneously stated that Howells created the role of Lady de Hautdesert, which was in fact written for Elizabeth Laurence. Our apologies, and thanks to the reader who pointed this out.
Anne Howells - a selected discography
John Tomlinson (The Green Knight/Bertilak de Hautdesert),Anne Howells (Lady de Hautdesert), Francois Le Roux (Gawain), Marie Angel (Morgan le Fay), Penelope Walmsley-Clark (Guinevere), Richard Greager (Arthur), Omar Ebrahim (The Fool), Alan Ewing (Agravain), John Marsden (Ywain), Kevin Smith (Bishop Baldwin)
Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Elgar Howarth
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Kiri Te Kanawa (Marschallin), Anne Howells (Octavian), Barbara Bonney (Sophie), Aage Haugland (Baron Ochs), Jonathan Summers (Faninal), Robert Tear (Valzacchi), Cynthia Buchan (Annina)
Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Sir Georg Solti, John Schlesinger
Available Format: DVD Video
Joan Sutherland (Lucrezia), Alfredo Kraus (Gennaro), Anne Howells (Maffio Orsini), Stafford Dean (Don Alfonso), Robin Leggate (Jacopo Liveretto), Jonathan Summers (Don Apostolo Gazella), Phillip Gelling (Ascanio Petrucci), Michael Goldthorpe (Oloferno Vitellozzo), Paul Hudson (Gubetta), Francis Egerton (Rustighello), Roderick Kennedy (Astolfo)
Orchestra & Chorus of the Royal Opera House, Richard Bonynge, John Copley
Available Format: DVD Video
Werner Hollweg (Tito), Carol Neblett (Vitellia), Catherine Malfitano (Servilia), Tatiana Troyanos (Sesto), Anne Howells (Annio), Kurt Rydl (Publio)
Wiener Philharmoniker, Chor der Wiener Staatsoper, James Levine
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Régine Crespin (Marschallin), Yvonne Minton (Octavian), Helen Donath (Sophie), Manfred Jungwirth (Ochs), Otto Wiener (Faninal), Anne Howells (Annina), Murray Dickie (Valzacchi), Luciano Pavarotti (Italian Tenor), Emmy Loose (Marianne Leitmetzerin)
Wiener Philharmoniker, Georg Solti
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
John Wakefield (Ormindo), Peter-Christoph Runge (Amida), Anne Howells (Erisebe), Isabel Garcisanz (Nerillo), Hanneke van Bork (Sicle), Jean Allister (Melide), Hugues Cuénod (Erice), Jane Berbié (Mirinda), Federico Davia (Ariadeno), Richard Van Allan (Osmano)
London Philharmonic Orchestra, Raymond Leppard
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Jane Manning (soprano), Anne Howells (mezzo-soprano), Norma Proctor (contralto) BBC Symphony Orchestra, Norman Del Mar
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC
Margaret Price, Oliviera Miljakovic (sopranos); Marjorie Wright (mezzo), Anne Howells (contralto), Werner Hollweg, Carlo Gaifa (tenors), Wolfgang Brendel (baritone), Robert Amis el Hage (bass)
Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro di RAI di Roma, Carlo Maria Giulini
Available Formats: 2 CDs, MP3, FLAC
Ian Bostridge (Tom Rakewell), Bryn Terfel (Nick Shadow), Deborah York (Anne Trulove), Anne Sofie von Otter (Baba the Turk), Anne Howells (Mother Goose), Peter Bronder (Sellem), Martin Robson (Trulove), Julian Clarkson (Keeper of the Madhouse)
London Symphony Orchestra, Monteverdi Choir, John Eliot Gardiner
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Cheryl Studer (Susannah Polk), Jerry Hadley (Sam Polk), Samuel Ramey (Olin Blitch), Anne Howells (Mrs McLean). Della Jones (Mrs Gleaton)
Orchestre et Choeur de l'Opéra National de Lyon, Kent Nagano
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Barbara Bonney (soprano), Anne Howells (mezzo), Anthony Rolfe Johnson (tenor), Stephen Roberts (bass)
City of London Sinfonia, London Symphony Chorus, Richard Hickox
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
