Dennis Arundell

Dennis Drew Arundell OBE (22 July 1898 – 10 December 1988) was a British actor, librettist, opera scholar, translator, producer, director, conductor and composer of incidental music who was born in Finchley and died in Camden.

Life and career Arundell's studies at St John's College, Cambridge, reading Classics and Music, were interrupted by the First World War, where in 1918 he was gassed and invalided out. As a Fellow of the College from 1923 to 1929 he mounted the first staging of Handel's Semele in 1926, and an early British performance of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat. He took the title role in the first British performance of Pirandello's Enrico IV, with designs by Cecil Beaton.

He also worked as a producer for Australian Opera and the Finnish National Theatre and Opera, and was head of opera at the Royal College of Music from 1959 to 1973.

Arundell's publications include an edition of Congreve's text for Semele (1925), Dryden and Howard (1929), The Critic at the Opera (1957), and The Story of Sadler's Wells (1965, 2nd edition 1978). He gave lectures at the Society of Theatre Research, broadcast regularly, was a member of the Purcell Society, and wrote for Opera magazine.

Selected filmography The Show Goes On (1937) Glamour Girl (1938) "Pimpernel" Smith (1941) Penn of Pennsylvania (1941) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) The Saint Meets the Tiger (1943) The Echo Murders (1945) The Man from Morocco (1945) Meet Sexton Blake! (1945) The End of the River (1947)