One of the UK's leading sopranos specializing in early music, April Cantelo has also made a name for herself with roles in modern creations. Born in Purbrook, Hampshire, on April 2, 1928, April Rosemary Cantelo studied singing in church and piano at London's Royal College of Music. After making her debut with the Chelmsford Festival Orchestra in 1947, she abandoned her medical studies to study opera singing at Dartington Hall Arts College, notably with Imogen Holst, daughter of composer Gustav Holst. She joined the National Opera Studio and sang with the Glyndebourne Chorus, The New English Singers and The Deller Consort, founded by countertenor Alfred Deller. After meeting clarinettist and future conductor Colin Davis, whom she married in 1949 until their separation in 1964, April Cantelo made her soprano debut in 1950 at the Edinburgh Festival in Ariadne auf Naxos (R. Strauss), followed by Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, which she also performed at the Glyndebourne Festival the following year. From then on, her roles in Mozart, Beethoven(Fidelio), Verdi(Rigoletto) and Massenet(Manon) multiplied, before numerous English premieres: two operas by Berkeley, including Ruth, which she recorded with Charles Mackerras, Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1960, Hans Werner Henze's Boulevard Solitude in 1962, Kurt Weill's Grandeur and Decadence of the City of Mahagonny in 1963, four operas by Williamson and John Eccles' Semele in 1972. At the same time, the soprano appeared several times at the London Proms, and took part in the first concert at The Purcell Room in 1967, in a tribute to the composer who inspired the hall's name. Her recordings feature both early and new music, with the greatest British conductors of her time. Among them are The Cries of London (1957) and Homage to Henry Purcell (1958) with Alfred Deller, Britten: The Little Sweep (1956), the recital Eighteenth Century Shakespearean Songs (1961), Purcell: Ode to St. Cecilia (1962), Purcell: The Little Sweep (1956) and The Little Sweep (1956). Cecilia (1962), Purcell: The Indian Queen (1966), Berlioz Songs (1968), Handel: Chandos Anthems and Handel: Ode for St. Cecilia's Day (1968), Haydn: Creation Mass (1969) and The Madrigals of Thomas Morley (1972). Retired to Oxfordshire, the soprano ran an amateur choir in Sutton Courtenay, before passing away on July 16, 2024 at the age of 96.
