Iris Victoria Kells (31 January 1923 – 10 August 2016) was an English operatic soprano. She played leading roles in the 1960s at

Sadler's Wells Opera English National Opera (ENO) is a British opera company based in London, resident at the London Coliseum in St Martin's Lane. It is one of the two principal opera companies in London, along with The Royal Opera. ENO's productions are sung in E ...

Life

Iris Kells was born in

Pachmarhi Pachmarhi is a hill station in the Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh state of central India. It has been the location of a cantonment (Pachmarhi Cantonment) since the British Raj. The municipality is located in a valley of the Satpura Rang ...

in India; her father was a colonel in the Indian army. The family moved to Britain in 1939, and she enrolled at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...

, studying with

Ralph Vaughan Williams Ralph Vaughan Williams ( ; 12 October 1872– 26 August 1958) was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over ...

. She later studied with the baritone

Clive Carey Francis Clive Savill Carey (30 May 188330 April 1968), known as Clive Carey, was an English baritone, singing teacher, composer, opera producer and folk song collector. Biography Clive Carey was born at Sible Hedingham, Essex, in 1883. He was ...

."Iris Kells, soprano – obituary"
''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a British daily broadsheet conservative newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed in the United Kingdom and internationally. It was found ...

'', 25 August 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2019."Obituary: Iris Kells"
''

The Stage ''The Stage'' is a British weekly newspaper and website covering the entertainment industry and particularly theatre. Founded in 1880, ''The Stage'' contains news, reviews, opinion, features, and recruitment advertising, mainly directed at thos ...

'', 7 September 2016. Retrieved 4 August 2019. In 1949 she joined the chorus of

the Royal Opera The Royal Opera is a British opera company based in central London, resident at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden. Along with English National Opera, it is one of the two principal opera companies in London. Founded in 1946 as the Covent G ...

. She was in the premiere in 1951 of ''

The Pilgrim's Progress ''The Pilgrim's Progress from This World, to That Which Is to Come'' is a 1678 Christian allegory written by John Bunyan. It is commonly regarded as one of the most significant works of Protestant devotional literature and of wider early moder ...

'', by Vaughan Williams, as the Woodcutter's Boy. She played other small singing roles; she was of small stature, and was often cast as a child or animal. Looking elsewhere, she performed in concert and oratorio. In 1958 she took part in the first recording of the opera ''

Peter Grimes ''Peter Grimes'', Op. 33, is an opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten, with a libretto by Montagu Slater based on the section "Peter Grimes", in George Crabbe's long narrative poem '' The Borough''. The "borough" of the opera is a fictional ...

'', by

Benjamin Britten Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten of Aldeburgh (22 November 1913 – 4 December 1976) was an English composer, conductor, and pianist. He was a central figure of 20th-century British music, with a range of works including opera, o ...

, in the role of Second Niece. In that year she played Gretel in ''

Hansel and Gretel "Hansel and Gretel" (; ) is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812 as part of ''Grimms' Fairy Tales'' (KHM 15). Hansel and Gretel are siblings who are abandoned in a forest and fall into the hands of a witch ...

'' at

; the reviewer of ''

'' wrote that she had "a clear voice of much sweetness". At the same theatre she appeared in a revival of Vaughan Williams's opera ''

Riders to the Sea ''Riders to the Sea'' is a play written by Irish Literary Renaissance playwright John Millington Synge. It was first performed on 25 February 1904 at the Molesworth Hall, Dublin, by the Irish National Theater Society with Helen Laird playing Mau ...

'', in the role of Cathleen. She appeared in several more productions at Sadler's Wells, including ''

Don Giovanni ''Don Giovanni'' (; K. 527; full title: , literally ''The Rake Punished, or Don Giovanni'') is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. Its subject is a centuries-old Spanish legen ...

'' in 1960, as Zerlina; ''

Cosi fan tutte COSI (), officially the Center of Science and Industry, is a science museum and research center in Columbus, Ohio. COSI was opened to the public on 29 March 1964 and remained there for 35 years. In 1999, COSI was moved to a facility, designed ...

'' in 1962, as Despina; and Offenbach's '' La Vie parisienne'' in 1964, as Gabrielle. She was treated for a benign brain tumour in 1966. After the 1960s she made few singing appearances. In the 1970s she was understudy for

Judi Dench Dame Judith Olivia Dench (born 9 December 1934) is an English actress. Widely considered one of Britain's greatest actors, she is noted for her versatility, having appeared in films and television, as well as for her numerous roles on the stage ...

in ''

The Good Companions ''The Good Companions'' is a novel by the English author J. B. Priestley. Written in 1929, it follows the fortunes of a Concert Party (entertainment), concert party on a tour of England. It is Priestley's most famous novel and established hi ...

'' at Her Majesty's Theatre, and she sang for the

Ice Capades The Ice Capades were traveling entertainment shows featuring theatrical ice skating performances. Shows often featured former Winter Olympic Games, Olympic and United States Figure Skating Championships, US National Champion figure skating, figur ...

at Wembley.

Family

She married in 1947 the conductor Leonard Hancock; the marriage was later dissolved. In 1967 she married

Stephen Arlen Stephen Arlen (31 October 1913 – 19 January 1972) was an English theatre manager and operatic administrator. Originally an actor, he took up backstage work as a stage manager, and in the years after the Second World War was in charge of stage ...

, the managing director of Sadler's Wells Opera, and they had a daughter, Juliette. Arlen died in 1972. Kells died in 2016, aged 93.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kells, Iris 1923 births 2016 deaths English operatic sopranos People from Pachmarhi Alumni of the Royal College of Music British people in colonial India