Helen Roberts

Helen Florence Roberts (15 July 1912 – 12 December 2010), later known as Betty Roberts and by her married name, Betty Walker, was an English singer and actress, best known for her performances in soprano roles of the Savoy Operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company.

After beginning her career touring in Italy and then England in grand opera, Roberts joined the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company as a principal soprano in 1938. She remained with that company for ten years, marrying another company member, the baritone Richard Walker, in 1944.

After four more years of theatre in Britain, the couple moved to the US, where they presented Gilbert and Sullivan in two-person entertainments throughout North America. They then moved to Australia, where they joined the J. C. Williamson Gilbert and Sullivan Opera Company. They toured with Williamson in the late 1950s and early 1960s. They also appeared in musicals, including a four-year engagement in the original Australian production of My Fair Lady. After her husband's death in 1989, she returned to England.

Early life and career Roberts was born in Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire. Her father was a surveyor for Lloyd's of London. He moved Helen, her two sisters and brother, to Naples, Italy, for five years immediately after World War I. She returned to England, to finish her schooling, and then studied music at the Royal Academy of Music, privately She toured in Italy with the Milan Opera Company, singing the role of Norina in Don Pasquale by Donizetti. After returning to England, she toured in Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann as the Doll and Antonia and also sang briefly in the chorus of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. She began to perform there under the name Betty Roberts, but Rupert D'Oyly Carte soon asked her to change it to something more fitting to a leading lady, and she returned to her birth forename. This was the longest continuous D'Oyly Carte career of any of the company's principal sopranos. The Times repeatedly praised her singing and appearance, and The Manchester Guardian, reviewing the company's 1941 tour, wrote, "One of the chief pleasures of last night's performance was the lovely voice of Miss Helen Roberts." During the war, she sang in concerts and on the radio in aid of public morale.

Later years At the end of July 1948, Roberts and her husband, seeing some of their roles being given to new talent, left the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. After a year playing in other theatre in Britain (he returned for part of that time to D'Oyly Carte). Roberts and Walker also gave two-person concert tours of Gilbert and Sullivan throughout North America in the early 1950s, where they lived for several years.

They then joined J. C. Williamson Limited to tour Australia and New Zealand. U.S. President Eisenhower asked the Walkers to give their concert programme at his pre-inauguration party at the White House following his re-election in 1956, but they were unable to travel from Australia to attend. She continued to sing into her 70s, giving concerts to benefit charities. She enjoyed painting and photography as hobbies. She died at The Malthouse, Gillingham, in December 2010, aged 98.