Arthur Davies

Arthur Davies (11 April 1941 – 8 August 2018) was a Welsh tenor who had an active international performance career from the 1970s through the 1990s. He performed leading roles with The Royal Opera in London, the Welsh National Opera, the Scottish Opera, and the English National Opera.

Life and career Born in Wrexham, Wales, Davies was a graduate of the Royal Northern College of Music where he was a pupil of tenor Joseph Ward. In 1972 he made his professional opera debut as Squeak in Benjamin Britten's Billy Budd at the Welsh National Opera (WNO). He subsequently performed numerous times for the WNO in parts like Count Almaviva in Rossini's The Barber of Seville, Don José in Bizet's Carmen, Ferrando in Mozart's Così fan tutte, Nemorino in Donizetti's L'elisir d'amore, Rodolfo in Puccini's La bohème, and the title role in Britten's Albert Herring. He sang Gerontius in the first Russian performance of the oratorio The Dream of Gerontius by Elgar in April 1983 conducted by Yevgeny Svetlanov.