Biography | Richard Charles Watson (1903 2 August 1968) was an Australian bass opera and concert singer and actor. He is probably best remembered as a long-time principal with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company who sang the comic bass-baritone roles of the Savoy Operas, but he appeared in a wide range of operas at the Royal Opera House and with the Carl Rosa Opera Company with singers including Lotte Lehmann and Lauritz Melchior, under conductors including Sir Thomas Beecham and Bruno Walter.
He recorded some operatic music, and over a half dozen of his recordings with D'Oyly Carte remain in print, including his 1932 recording of King Hildebrand in Princess Ida and his recordings of the Learned Judge, Sergeant of Police, Pooh-Bah, Sir Despard Murgatroyd, Wilfred Shadbolt and Don Alhambra, released in 1949 and 1950. |