| Biography | Margaret [Willard] Ritchie, the soprano (early in her career she sometimes used Mabel instead of Margaret) was born in Grimsby on 7 August 1903 and died at Ewelme, Oxfordshire on 7 February 1969. She studied at the Royal College of Music and with Plunket Greene, Agnes Nicholls (two notable British singers of the early years of the 20th Century) and Sir Henry Wood. She first attracted attention as a student in a Royal College production of The Magic Flute in which she sang the role of Pamina. She then established a reputation as a concert singer and as principal soprano of the Intimate Opera Company which was founded by Frederick Woodhouse and which was to remain in being until the 1970s and to inspire and revive many small-scale operatic works by British (and other) composers.
Ritchie later (in 1944) joined Sadlers Wells Opera, where her performance as Dorabella in Così Fan Tutte earned particular praise. In 1946-7 she sang for Glyndebourne Opera, taking in 1946 the role of Lucia in Brittens then new The Rape of Lucretia. In 1947 she joined the English Opera Group where her performance as Miss Wordsworth in another Britten opera, Albert Herring, displayed her musical qualities and feeling for comedy.
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