Robert Gard

Robert Joseph Gard OBE (7 March 1927 – 20 March 2021) was a British-born Australian operatic tenor. He was a leading singer with Opera Australia, and he was particularly associated with the role of Aschenbach in Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice. He premiered the role in Australia, and he sang the role in Tony Palmer's 1981 film of the opera after the originator of the role, Peter Pears, was incapacitated.

Robert Gard was born in Padstow, Cornwall, England on 7 March 1927. He started studying in London in 1944, but in 1945 he was conscripted to the British Army, and sang in some army concerts. After the war, he won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied with Dino Borgioli, Walter Hyde and Arthur Reckless.

He sang in such operatic roles as Almaviva (Don Giovanni), the title role in Fra Diavolo, Ernesto (Don Pasquale), and Alfredo (La traviata). In 1956 he appeared in the premiere of Lennox Berkeley's opera Ruth.

In 1961 he travelled to Australia to sing in the musical Lock Up Your Daughters at the Palace Theatre, Sydney. This was followed by other musicals such as Kismet (1961–62) and Show Boat (1963).

In 1966 he first appeared with Opera Australia, in The Merry Widow and The Barber of Seville. His other roles for Opera Australia and other companies such as South Australia State Opera included Don Pasquale, The Magic Flute, Falstaff, Boris Godunov, The Rake's Progress, The Rape of Lucretia, Cavalleria rusticana, Pagliacci, The Marriage of Figaro, The Turn of the Screw, Jenůfa, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, The Queen of Spades, Patience, Manon Lescaut, Káťa Kabanová, Peter Grimes, Tristan und Isolde, Fiddler on the Roof, Voss, Salome, Elektra, and Turandot. His final role for Opera Australia was in The Makropoulos Secret at the Sydney Opera House in 2008.