Geoffrey Shovelton

Geoffrey Richard Shovelton (27 April 1936 – 4 July 2016) was an English singer, actor and illustrator best known for his performances in leading tenor roles with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the 1970s.

Shovelton began his professional life with a teaching career, during which he began to perform professionally in oratorio and opera. He became a full-time professional singer in 1971, performing with Scottish Opera and other companies. Shovelton joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in 1975, playing the leading tenor roles in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas until the company closed in 1982. He also made a few recordings with the company.

He continued to perform in Savoy operas, other operas and in concerts both in the UK and the US, and to organize tours and direct productions. Shovelton also illustrated books, journals, promotional materials and greeting cards, mostly in connection with Gilbert and Sullivan. He and his wife settled in the US, in Maine, in 2001, after which he continued to direct, until 2005, and to create artworks, write and give lectures until his last years.

Life and career Shovelton was born in Atherton, Lancashire, the only child of Kathleen and Richard Shovelton. He attended the Thornleigh Salesian College in Bolton and studied geography at the University of Hull. While at Hull, he met and married his first wife, Margaret, née Blanchard, a fellow geography student. He began a career in education, and for several years he was senior geography master at the Salvatorian College, a grammar school in Wealdstone, Middlesex, while pursuing post-graduate research at the University of London. Meanwhile, he played the piano and organ and studied voice with Dino Borgioli, Roy Henderson and Denis Dowling. In 1964 and 1965 he received awards in singing competitions at 's-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands and Verviers in Belgium, and these helped him to decide to pursue a career in opera. , Tayside Opera, Basilica Opera, Scottish Opera and its touring group, Opera for All. His roles included Roderigo in Verdi's Otello, Don Curzio in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, and Lysander in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Shovelton's first marriage was eventually annulled; During these years, he also appeared at the Birmingham Triennial Music Festival in 1977, among a few other concert appearances for various charities, also sometimes designing artwork for the benefits. and with the Washington Savoyards in the US. With his wife, he directed numerous Gawsworth Hall productions from 1995. He also directed Gilbert and Sullivan operas for a number of amateur groups on both sides of the Atlantic. He continued to write and create artwork until his last years.

Shovelton died at the age of 80, at the Androscoggin Hospice in Auburn, Maine, only a month after his wife's death and the diagnosis of his brain tumour. a number of compilation albums and in a complete recording of the original French Don Carlos (Herald). Shovelton was a soloist in the concert video recording, "Gilbert & Sullivan Present their Greatest Hits," from Royal Albert Hall in 1983.