Richard Watson

Richard Charles Watson (1903 – 2 August 1968) was an Australian bass opera and concert singer and actor. He is probably best remembered as a 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.

Watson was born in Adelaide. After training at the Elder Conservatorium, he taught locally before being awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London in 1925. He also studied with the baritone Dinh Gilly.

He made his London stage debut in a one-off charity matinée performance of a musical fantasy called The Ladder at Daly's Theatre in June 1927, in a cast led by Maggie Teyte. Also in the cast was Walter Johnstone-Douglas, who had taught Watson at the Royal College. He engaged Watson to appear in 1928 in a company including Astra Desmond, Roy Henderson and Steuart Wilson, performing in a season of operas at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in Così fan tutte, Master Peter's Puppet Show, The Secret Marriage, and Vaughan Williams's new opera, The Shepherds of the Delectable Mountains. Later that year, he sang in Charpentier's Louise, conducted by Malcolm Sargent.