Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 22, 2012



Kathleen Ferrier (1912–1953) was an English contralto who achieved an international reputation as a stage, concert and recording artist. Her early death from cancer, at the height of her fame, was a considerable shock to the music world. Ferrier began singing professionally in 1937, after winning a singing competition. During the Second World War she performed regularly with the Council for the Encouragement of the Arts (CEMA); her career developed considerably after the conductor Malcolm Sargent recommended her to the influential Ibbs and Tillett concert management agency. In 1946 she made her stage debut as Lucretia in the Glyndebourne Festival premiere of Benjamin Britten's opera The Rape of Lucretia. A year later she sang Orfeo in Gluck's Orfeo ed Euridice; these were her only two operatic roles. As a recitalist she became known internationally through her three tours of the United States and her many visits to continental Europe. She continued to perform and record after being diagnosed with breast cancer in March 1951. Her final public appearance was as Orfeo, at the Royal Opera House in February 1953; she died in October that year. Among her many memorials, the Kathleen Ferrier Cancer Research Fund was launched in May 1954; the Kathleen Ferrier Scholarship Fund, administered by the Royal Philharmonic Society, makes annual awards to aspiring young professional singers. (more...)

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