| Variations of Name | John Mervyn Frederick John Dobson |
| Biography | Born on 17 November 1930, in Derby, he was the son of Mary and Mervyn Dobson, a garage owner and motor engineer. In the 1950s he made his living for a while as a jobbing singer. He later went to study at Guildhall School of Music with Norman Walker and in Italy with Giovanni Inghilleri. He went on to make his debut in Bergamo in 1956 as Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly and later took on the role of Alfredo in La Traviata and Rodolfo in La Bohème. After his Bergamo debut he returned to Britain to sing with the New Opera Company and at Glyndebourne.
After performing multiple leading roles he ended up portraying comprimario roles. In 1959, he made his Covent Garden debut as Faninals Major Domo in Der Rosenkavalier and in 1962, he created the role of Paris in Michael Tippetts King Priam. With the Royal Opera he sang more than 2,000 performances in 90 roles before retiring in in 1995. Among his most popular roles were the courtier Shuisky in Mussorgskys Boris Godunov, and the police agent Spoletta in Tosca; he performed the latter role alongside eight different Scarpias including Tito Gobbi, Peter Glossop, and Geraint Evans in Puccinis Tosca.
Other celebrated roles by Dobson included Mime and Loge in Wagners Ring Cycle, David in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, Melot in Tristan and Isolde, Goro in Madama Butterfly and Pang and the Emperor in Turandot.
John Dobson, who has died aged 92, clocked up more than 2,000 performances in around 90 roles at Covent Garden alone by the time he retired in 1995. |