John Cameron

John Ewen Cameron (20 March 191829 March 2002) was an Australian baritone singer, who made most of his career in Britain. He became known for his portrayal of characters in modern operas by composers from Australia, Britain and continental Europe, and for his recordings with conductors such as Sir Thomas Beecham, Sir Adrian Boult, the young Colin Davis, and particularly Sir Malcolm Sargent.

Following early concert and operatic experience in Australia he moved to Britain in 1949. He soon was engaged at Covent Garden, where he sang smaller, and some substantial, roles for three seasons. He next sang at Glyndebourne. Over the next 25 years Cameron pursued a career, in both Britain and Australia, in which concert work and recordings played as great a part as opera. From 1976 until the last months of his life Cameron was a teacher on the staff of the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.

Early life and career Cameron was born in Coolamon, New South Wales. He sang in troop concerts, and on returning to Australia after the war he decided to pursue a professional career. He studied at the New South Wales State Conservatorium in Sydney, and by the late 1940s he was performing in the concert hall, and in opera, including Il trovatore in 1947. In 1948 after a nationwide singing competition Cameron and a fellow prize-winner, Joan Sutherland, sang under the baton of Eugene Goossens at a concert in Sydney. With Goossens's encouragement, Cameron moved to Britain in 1949. He played minor parts for the company in Lohengrin, Tosca, Carmen and Parsifal, and created roles in the premieres of The Pilgrim's Progress and Billy Budd. His two most substantial parts for the company were Germont senior in La traviata and the Speaker of the Temple in The Magic Flute. but the Royal Opera House archives show that Geraint Evans was the only performer to play the role for the company between January 1949 and November 1956.

Peak years Throughout his career Cameron returned frequently to Australia; between 1949 and 1974 he performed with the Elizabethan Trust Opera Company and its successors.

Cameron became known for his performances in operas by modern composers. Between 1957 and 1974 he appeared in A Tale of Two Cities (Arthur Benjamin, 1957), The Prisoner (Luigi Dallapiccola, 1959), Diary of a Madman (Humphrey Searle, 1960), The Sorrows of Orpheus (Darius Milhaud, 1960), Punch and Judy (Harrison Birtwistle, 1968), Cardillac (Paul Hindemith, 1970), The Trial (Gottfried von Einem, 1973) and Arden Must Die (Alexander Goehr, 1974). and, between 1957 and 1962, eight Gilbert and Sullivan operas (Trial by Jury, H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, Patience, Iolanthe, The Mikado, The Yeomen of the Guard and The Gondoliers). Cameron played the role of Jack Point in The Yeomen of the Guard in New York in 1962 and at open-air performances at the Tower of London in 1962 and 1964. Howard Taubman in The New York Times praised Cameron as "a Jack Point [who] can act and a clown who can sing".

Later years In 1976 Cameron began a teaching career, joining the faculty of the Royal Northern College of Music. He remained there for another 25 years and was still teaching as a member of staff until the last few months of his life. In his later years, according to the music writer Elizabeth Forbes, "he concentrated on teaching lieder, stressing, as he had demonstrated himself throughout his career, the importance of words in conjunction with music."

Cameron died in London at the age of 84. His second wife predeceased him; he was survived by his daughter from his first marriage.

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