Enid Hartle

Enid Hartle (1935–2008) was born in Sheffield in 1935 and studied singing first at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and after with Vera Rozsa, with whom she had a long and fruitful relationship.

Enid Hartle's early appearances included Mrs Grose "a firmly sketched-in portrait of a comfortable old woman out of her depth" in The Turn of the Screw in London.

She began singing in the chorus of Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1968 and the following year made her debut on the Glyndebourne Tour, singing Filipyevna in Eugene Onegin by Tchaikovsky. This role was to take her to, among other places, Toronto, Amsterdam, and The Royal Opera House in London. She also took part in the Decca recording of Eugene Onegin, under the direction of Georg Solti.

She was a lyric character mezzo-soprano and was employed by Glyndebourne both in the main season and on the tour for many years, where her roles included:

She created the role of Miss Reid in Winter Cruise by Hans Henkemans which won her great praise from the Dutch press and whose "committed approach" allowed her to present Act 1 "virtually a monologue for her... with consummate skill".

When not at Glyndebourne or abroad Enid sang with Kent Opera, where her roles included:

Many of these operas were conducted by Roger Norrington.

Enid's perceptive and sensitive interpretation of these roles, infused by her love of music and language, made the characters real. She was a keen observer of and commentator on life, and her humour and enormous sense of the ridiculous brought previously unthought-of dimensions to these roles.