Thomas Round

Life and career

Round was born and raised in Barrow-in-Furness (now in Cumbria but at that time part of Lancashire). He began singing as a child in the St Paul's Mission church choir, where he met his furture wife, Alice (d. 30 December 2010). On leaving school he started working as an apprentice joiner and competed at some music festivals. In 1936 he joined the police force and was stationed in Lancaster. In 1938 he married Alice at St Paul's Church, Barrow, and the couple had one son, Ellis.

During World War II, Round became a fighter pilot in the Royal Air Force and was sent for flight training to the No. 1 British Flying Training School in Terrell, Texas. Later in the war, he served as a flying instructor for the United States Air Force. During this time he began his performing career, later recalling, "I was doing a lot of singing every Sunday in churches all over Texas. I had my own plane so I would fly down 300 miles to San Antonio for an 11 a.m. service, I would sing and then I would fly back home in the evening." He was offered the chance to appear as a guest in a college production in Dallas, playing Canio in I Pagliacci. "It was my first time in any type of production but I loved it." Round was offered a place at a music school in New York, but turned it down in order to return home to England.

D'Oyly Carte and Sadler's Wells years

While still in the RAF, Round auditioned for the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, and joined it upon his discharge, in February 1946. He understudied the leading Gilbert and Sullivan tenor roles, appearing occasionally as Nanki-Poo in The Mikado. In September of the same year, he became the company's principal tenor, for the next three years, playing the roles of Ralph Rackstraw in H.M.S. Pinafore, Frederic in The Pirates of Penzance, Earl Tolloller in Iolanthe, Nanki-Poo in The Mikado, and Luiz in The Gondoliers.

Round left the D'Oyly Carte company in 1949, and appeared in a musical, playing the young Johann Strauss in Waltzes from Vienna, and an ice show, Rose Marie on Ice (1950). Next, he sang for six years with Sadler's Wells Opera. He appeared in some comic character parts such as Don Basilio in The Marriage of Figaro, but generally took the leading romantic tenor roles, including Tamino in The Magic Flute, Jenik in The Bartered Bride, and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni. He played Danilo in the first production by a major British opera company of The Merry Widow (1958), in which The Musical Times found him "dashingly stylish". He also played principal roles in I Pagliacci, Gianni Schicchi, Lilac Time, Eugene Onegin, and less-frequently staged works including Rimsky Korsakov's The Snow Maiden, Wolf-Ferrari's School for Fathers, and John Gardner's adaptation of The Moon and Sixpence.

During his Sadler's Wells years, Round undertook guest engagements elsewhere. He created the tenor lead, Nils, in the world premiere of Delius's Irmelin under Sir Thomas Beecham in Oxford in 1953. The critic Eric Blom wrote, "Thomas Round as the hero was particularly good. He should soon make a Siegfried, though perhaps only the young Siegfried to begin with." Also in 1953, he appeared in the film The Story of Gilbert and Sullivan. The following year, he rejoined D'Oyly Carte as a guest artist for a short period, playing Prince Hilarion in a new production of Princess Ida at the Savoy Theatre. In 1955 he and the young Heather Harper played the leads in a televised version of La traviata. In 1958, he participated in the Royal Variety Performance.

Round returned to D'Oyly Carte, on tour in 1958 in Dublin, playing his old roles of Frederic, Nanki-Poo, adding Ralph, and, for the first time, Marco in The Gondoliers, the following season. During the company's summer break in 1958, Round earned more good notices as Count Danilo with Sadler's Wells in The Merry Widow at the London Coliseum. In 1960 and 1961 he assumed a new role, Colonel Fairfax, in The Yeomen of the Guard also appearing in that role for the City of London Festival production at the Tower of London in 1962. In 1961, he performed more new roles, as Richard Dauntless in Ruddigore and Cyril in Princess Ida, participating in 1962 in the company's extensive North American tour. By 1963, Philip Potter had taken over the parts of Frederic and Nanki-Poo, but Round added the role of the Defendant in Trial by Jury and resumed singing Tolloller in Iolanthe. In 1964, he again left the D'Oyly Carte company. He told The Times, "For the first time in my career I am not under contract to anyone, and I find this quite exciting."

Gilbert and Sullivan for All

Round, together with Norman Meadmore and Donald Adams, founded their own ensemble, Gilbert and Sullivan for All, around the time that he left D'Oyly Carte. In 1969, when Adams left D'Oyly Carte, the partners began to tour extensively with this new company in the British Isles, the Far East, Australasia, and North America, including three Hollywood Bowl concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. To enable the company to appear in small venues, Sullivan's orchestrations were adapted and arranged for smaller forces than D'Oyly Carte employed. Other regular members of the ensemble were Valerie Masterson and Gillian Knight. Round sang the roles of Box in Cox and Box, the Defendant in Trial, Ralph in H.M.S. Pinafore, Frederic in Pirates, Tolloller in Iolanthe, Nanki-Poo in The Mikado, Richard Dauntless in Ruddigore, Colonel Fairfax in Yeomen, and Marco in The Gondoliers, as well as acting as a director for the company. He and Adams continued to appear in Gilbert and Sullivan into the 1990s.

During his Gilbert and Sullivan for All years, Round also appeared as Arthur Sullivan on tour with Donald Adams in Tarantara! Tarantara!, a musical about the Gilbert and Sullivan partnership by Ian Taylor. In the 1970s, Round and Adams presented a television series about the Savoy operas, devoting each programme to an individual opera.

Later years and retirement

During his career, Round continued to give concerts and to sing in oratorio and recitals. He was frequently heard on BBC radio, including the Friday Night Is Music Night programme, and his television performances included several operas, listed in the filmography below. In November 1995, he celebrated fifty years as a professional singer, with a three-day opera event in the Lake District at which Adams also appeared.

In 1980, Round took up sailing as a hobby, and he and his wife moved to the Lancashire coast in 1988. Throughout the years, Round has maintained his interest in Gilbert and Sullivan and their works. The centenarian lives at Bolton-le-Sands and has, for many years, been president of the Marton Operatic Society and vice-president of The Gilbert and Sullivan Society (London). Until 2006, Round was Honorary President of the University of York Gilbert and Sullivan Society. In 2006, he became the president of Lancaster & District Choral Society, serving until 2015. He has appeared many times at the annual International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival performing, lecturing and meeting with Gilbert and Sullivan enthusiasts.

Recordings and filmography

In 1958, June Bronhill and Round recorded The Merry Widow for HMV. The Gramophone described his Danilo as "first class ... with a fresh youthful voice and an easy and appropriately racy style." This was followed by Lilac Time released in 1960.

With the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company and Decca Records, Round recorded Hilarion (1955), Frederic (1958), Nanki-Poo (1958), Ralph Rackstraw (1960), Tolloller (1960), Marco (1961), Richard Dauntless (1962), the Defendant (1964), and Captain Fitzbattleaxe in Utopia Limited (1964 excerpts). In 2008 the critic of The Gramophone, John Steane, wrote that, of Gilbert and Sullivan tenors, Round was "surely the best we've had."

In the 1970s, Round also recorded and filmed his roles with Gilbert and Sullivan for All. These were complete recordings of Trial by Jury and Cox and Box, and potted excerpts (as much as would fit on two sides of an LP record) of seven others, which have since been reissued on CD. In 1996, when the Gilbert and Sullivan for All films were reissued on video by the International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, Round recorded introductions for each. The Gilbert and Sullivan for All team also recorded a miscellaneous LP, including Valerie Masterson and Gillian Knight as Princesses Nekaya and Kalyba in an excerpt from Utopia, Limited, and Round as Antonio in The Gondoliers. With Donald Adams, he recorded a musical documentary, The Story of Gilbert & Sullivan, written by Dr. Thomas Heric. He also made two recordings of lesser-known Sullivan music.

For Pearl Records, Round recorded a collection of Victorian ballads, which was chosen by The Times as one of the "Critics' choice, records of the year" for 1974, an eclectic collection, Songs You Love (1976), and he participated in a recording of Edwardian music. In 2008, he released a CD of twelve Irish songs called Thomas Round sings Irish Songs, recorded when he was principal tenor with Sadler's Wells Opera.

Round's filmography is as follows: