Lyndsie Holland

Lyndsie Holland (12 March 1939 – 2 April 2014) was an English singer and actress, known for her performances in the contralto roles of the Savoy Operas.

After beginning her singing career in the chorus of the Sadler's Wells Opera in 1968, Holland starred in the Gilbert and Sullivan contralto roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company for seven years, beginning in 1970. In later years, she performed in musical theatre and concerts.

Holland was born Margaret Foster in Pedmore, a suburb of Stourbridge, the youngest of eight children. She attended Stourbridge High School and began clerical work at British Road Services in Kingswinford, later working as a telephonist in Birmingham for a firm of stockbrokers. She began taking singing lessons and performed, at first, in some local musicals and with a Kingswinford-based male choir, the Gentlemen Songsters in Stourbridge. She then joined the Midland Music Makers Grand Opera Society, an amateur operatic society, where she performed for three years, eventually playing Konchakovna in Prince Igor. This was seen by a talent scout from Sadler's Wells Opera. She debuted with Sadler's Wells in September 1968, in the chorus, where she played in twenty-three operas. Holland adopted, for her stage name, the maiden names of her two grandmothers.

In December 1970, she joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. Her first role, in March 1971, was Lady Sangazure in their newly revived production of The Sorcerer, and she was soon performing major roles in ten of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas, adding Little Buttercup in H.M.S. Pinafore, Ruth in The Pirates of Penzance, Lady Jane in Patience, the Queen of the Fairies in Iolanthe, Lady Blanche in Princess Ida, Katisha in The Mikado, Dame Hannah in Ruddigore, Dame Carruthers in The Yeomen of the Guard, and the Duchess of Plaza-Toro in The Gondoliers. She continued to play these roles for seven years, leaving the company in July 1977.