Andrew Porter

Andrew Brian Porter (26 August 19283 April 2015) was a British music critic, opera librettist, opera director, scholar, and organist.

Early life and education Andrew Porter was born in Cape Town, South Africa on 26 August 1928. His mother was originally from England and had contemplated a career as a singer before settling into married life. Andrew attended Diocesan College in Rondebosch where his studies included music. and also played basso continuo in performances of Bach’s Mass in B minor under Coates's direction. Stanley Sadie, in the 2001 edition of the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, wrote that Porter "built up a distinctive tradition of criticism, with longer notices than were customary in British daily papers, based on his elegant, spacious literary style and always informed by a knowledge of music history and the findings of textual scholarship as well as an exceptionally wide range of sympathies with 19th-century opera and its interpretation as their focal point." returning to England for a year fellowship in 1973-1974 at All Souls College, Oxford. In particular, with operas that were unfamiliar to him, Porter exercised additional diligence in his preparation for his reviews. According to Opera News:

When reviewing an opera that was new to him, such as Bloch's Macbeth, he might attend three performances before he felt qualified to write about it; he frequently returned to productions after opening night to refine his viewpoint, and he reviewed virtually all music only after learning it from the score." and Bright Sheng's The Song of Majnun, based on the ancient Persian story.

As a scholar, Porter notably discovered excised portions of Verdi's Don Carlos in the library of the Paris Opera, which led to the restoration of the original version of the work.

Later life in England In 1992 Porter returned to England when he was appointed music critic at The Observer.

In 2003, Porter was honored with the publication of a festschrift, Words on Music: Essays in Honor of Andrew Porter on the Occasion of His 75th Birthday.

Porter died of pneumonia on 3 April 2015. His twin sister was his only surviving relation. He continued attending performances, including one of Die Meistersinger, even while sick, and his final two reviews for Opera, of Gaetano Donizetti's Il furioso all'isola di San Domingo and I pazzi per progetto, went to press hours before his death.