Obituary, James Bowman (1941-2023)

The trailblazing English countertenor James Bowman, who created the role of the Voice of Apollo in Britten’s Death in Venice and was also closely associated with Oberon in his A Midsummer Night’s Dream, has died aged 81.

Born in Oxford in 1941, Bowman was educated at the King’s School Ely, where he sang as a treble chorister and found his vocation as a countertenor after deputising for a visiting soloist in Purcell’s Welcome to All the Pleasures; he subsequently took up a choral scholarship at New College Oxford (where he read History), and began singing with the Choir of Westminster Abbey and with David Munrow’s Early Music Consort of London not long after graduation. His work with the latter ensemble led to lasting friendships with the lutenist Robert Spencer and with Christopher Hogwood, with whom he would go on to make landmark recordings of works including Handel’s Orlando and Athalia, the Stabat maters of Vivaldi and Pergolesi, and Vivaldi’s Nisi dominus.

Bowman’s career as a soloist began in earnest in 1967, after he auditioned for Benjamin Britten’s English Opera Group; the composer invited him to sing at the opening concert of Queen Elizabeth Hall (Bowman’s professional solo debut in London), and later that year he appeared at Aldeburgh and at Sadler’s Wells in a role that he came to redefine: Oberon in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which he went on to sing at many of the world’s major opera-houses and to record for Richard Hickox in 1990. With a more robust, richly-coloured voice than the original Oberon, the ethereal Alfred Deller, Bowman’s advocacy played a significant part in reviving interest in the opera and confirming that it was a viable prospect in larger venues, and Britten responded by writing glorious roles for him in two late works - The Journey of the Magi in 1971 and Death in Venice two years later.

In 1970 Bowman became the first countertenor in history to perform at the Glyndebourne Festival, singing Endimione in Cavalli’s La Calisto opposite Janet Baker as Diana and Ileana Cotrubas in the title-role; eleven years on, he returned as Oberon in the first performances of Peter Hall’s now-legendary staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (which remains in the Festival’s repertoire this season). Throughout the 1970s and 80s he appeared regularly in opera in the UK and abroad, with notable highlights including a deliciously imperious Tolomeo in Handel’s Julius Caesar (again opposite Baker) at English National Opera, the Priest in the world premiere of Peter Maxwell Davies’s Taverner at Covent Garden in 1972, and performances at La Scala, Sydney Opera House, and La Fenice.

Consort-singing and concert work were lifelong passions for Bowman, and he scaled back his operatic engagements in order to focus on these areas whilst still at the height of his considerable powers on stage; his vast discography includes superb recordings of many of Purcell’s major works, Dowland lute songs with his friend Robert Spencer, the Monteverdi Vespers with John Eliot Gardiner, and a late-career St. John Passion with his alma mater New College.

His concert repertoire also included twentieth-century works such as Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, Orff’s Carmina Burana and Tippett’s Songs for Ariel, as well as works composed for him by Richard Rodney Bennett, Alan Ridout, Robin Holloway, Elisabeth Lutyens and Michael Nyman. Towards the end of his career he returned to the Anglican choral tradition which had first sparked his passion for singing, spending a ten-year stint in the Choir of the Chapel Royal at St. James's Palace (including an appearance on their Music for the Coronation of James II, 1685 in 2007).

Bowman gave his London farewell recital at Wigmore Hall in 2011, when he was partnered by Mahan Esfahani in a programme of Handel and Purcell, but continued to perform quite regularly elsewhere in the UK – particularly in support of charities, young artists and new musical initiatives. (One such event was a performance of Bach’s Mass in B minor to open the Oxford Early Music Festival in 2013; at the post-concert party I recall him gleefully informing me that he was looking forward to diving into Gilbert & Sullivan’s contralto roles in his ‘retirement’, though posterity does not record whether or not this came to fruition in public…).

Bowman received a CBE in 1997, and was made an Honorary Fellow of New College (where he regularly showed up to support emerging artists in summer opera productions) a year later; his other awards and honours include the Medaille de la Ville de Paris and the title of Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. Among the many colleagues who paid tribute to his artistry, kindness and uproarious sense of humour today were the composer Nico Muhly, Bowman’s long-term friend and musical partner Catherine Bott, and fellow countertenors Andreas Scholl, Tim Mead and Iestyn Davies; the Academy of Ancient Music, with whom he worked extensively throughout his career, described him as a ‘true pioneer [who] led the way for countertenors everywhere, in the Early Music revival and beyond’.

James Bowman - a selected discography