Thomas Lawlor (bass-baritone)


Thomas F. Lawlor was an Irish opera singer. In the 1960s, he became known for his performances in mostly baritone roles of the Gilbert and Sullivan operas with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company. In the 1970s and 1980s, he performed over 60 operatic roles, usually as a bass-baritone, with various British opera companies. He was also a director in the opera department of the Royal Academy of Music and at Trinity College of Music. In later years, he moved to the US, where he continued to perform, direct and teach.

Early life and D'Oyly Carte

Lawlor was born and raised in Dublin, the son of Thomas Lawlor and his wife Elizabeth née Hendrick. His siblings were Marie Lee, Vera Gow, Patricia Stewart and Brendan Lawlor. He studied at University College Dublin, earning a B.A. in Philosophy and English. For a time he taught English, Geography and Gaelic. At the same time, he performed as an amateur in musicals and studied singing part-time at the Dublin College of Music where, in 1960, he won the Sam Heilbut Major Scholarship, which helped him to attend the Guildhall School of Music for three years. He began to perform professionally in musicals and concerts.
In 1963, Lawlor was engaged as a chorister by the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, performing in the Gilbert and Sullivan operas. He soon was called upon to understudy and occasionally performed the small roles of Guron in Princess Ida and the Second Yeoman in The Yeomen of the Guard. During the company's tour of the US in 1964–65, Lawlor sang at the Carnegie Hall in New York, as a guest artist in a gala concert of Irish music. In 1965, he was given three principal parts of his own with D'Oyly Carte: the Counsel in Trial by Jury, Strephon in Iolanthe, and Pish-Tush in The Mikado. He also played the role of Second Yeoman in some seasons and, when Princess Ida was revived in 1967, added Guron. From 1966, he understudied the roles of Giuseppe in The Gondoliers and Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore. He also played the Sergeant of Police in The Pirates of Penzance in some seasons. From 1968, he added three more principal roles on a regular basis : Captain Corcoran, Florian in Princess Ida, and the Lieutenant of the Tower in Yeomen. A new role in 1970 was Sergeant Bouncer in Cox and Box. Lawlor married D'Oyly Carte mezzo-soprano Pauline Wales in 1971, and the two had a daughter, Frances Galvan.

Opera career and later years

Lawlor left D'Oyly Carte in 1971 to pursue a more varied career in opera, singing over 60 operatic roles. He immediately drew good notices: The Times reviewed his Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte in September of that year, commenting, "his eagle-eyed squire of an Alfonso, wise in the knowledge that he will be proved right in the end... is an interpretation much preferable to the buffo clowning seen in this role at Glyndebourne." The next year, the same paper called his Osmin in Die Entführung aus dem Serail "imposing... a figure of menace as well as of fun, with the voice to go with both sides of the character". Among his roles in the British Isles were:
He also sang with such companies as Dublin Grand Opera Society and Netherlands Opera, at the music festivals of Hintlesham, Camden, Singapore, Valencia, Colorado and Michigan, and in concerts and recitals in major concert halls, especially in Britain, Ireland and the US. Lawlor occasionally returned to Gilbert and Sullivan; he appeared as a guest artist with D'Oyly Carte in August 1971 and again in 1974–75 as Florian, as well as in the other Savoy opera roles noted above for ENO, Kent and Opera North. In the early 1990s, he appeared with the London Savoyards in the roles of Dick Deadeye in Pinafore, the title role in Mikado, and the Pirate King in Pirates.
Lawlor was a director in the opera department of the Royal Academy of Music and at Trinity College of Music, both in London, and later for opera at the Bay View Music Festival in Michigan. He was a member of the music faculty of Brown University and Rhode Island College, where he taught voice and directed in the Opera Workshop. Lawlor and Wales's marriage ended in divorce, and he remarried and divorced again, later moving to the US and becoming a citizen. He then founded and served as artistic director for Beavertail Productions, a company that specialised in educational operatic programming for adults and children. For Beavertail, he created and directed an entertainment called Gilbert & Sullivan: A Life, which he presented in New England in the 1990s. In 1992, Lawlor married Jill née'' Rogers, a mezzo-soprano and co-founder of Beavertail.
He was an avid hiker and "a keen amateur geologist", recording BBC television programmes about his favorite walks, and the geology and history of West Yorkshire. He also enjoyed cooking, especially Indian cuisine, and was active in his church. Lawlor continued to perform, direct and teach until at least 2011. In later years, he and his wife lived in Rhode Island.
Lawlor died in 2020 at the age of 82 at his home in Rhode Island. He is buried at St. Ann's Cemetery, Cranston, Rhode Island.

Recordings

Lawlor's roles recorded with D'Oyly Carte include Second Yeoman in The Yeomen of the Guard and Captain Corcoran in H.M.S. Pinafore, as well as excerpts from the roles of Giuseppe and Strephon on a 1970 highlights LP entitled Songs and Snatches. He also was Pish-Tush in the 1966 film version of The Mikado. He recorded Bouncer with Gilbert and Sullivan for All and appeared in the same role in the 1982 Brent Walker video of Cox and Box. In 1987, he recorded the roles of Dick Deadeye in Pinafore and Roderic in Ruddigore with the New Sadler's Wells Opera. His other recordings include parts in The Rake's Progress by Stravinskly, Marie-Magdeleine by Massenet, La riconoscenza by Rossini, Cendrillon by Pauline Viardot and Le Carrosse du Saint-Sacrement, a comic opera by Lord Berners. He also appeared in television movies of The Marriage of Figaro as Antonio, an abridged version of Rigoletto in English, and The Rake's Progress as The Keeper of the Madhouse.