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Webster Booth (21 January 1902 – 21 June 1984) was an English tenor, best remembered as the duettist partner of Anne Ziegler.〔''New York Times'' (18 October 2003) "Anne Ziegler, 93, World War II Singer" ()〕 He was also one of the finest tenors of his generation and was a distinguished oratorio soloist. He was a chorister at Lincoln Cathedral (1911–1915) and made his professional stage debut with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, where he performed from 1923 to 1927. He made his West End Debut in ''The Three Musketeers''〔(Guide to Musical Theatre )〕 in 1930. He began recording for HMV in 1929 and made over 500 solo recordings and many duet recordings with Anne Ziegler. He and Ziegler embarked on their famous duettist variety act in 1940. They starred in three musical plays, "The Vagabond King" (1943), "Sweet Yesterday" (1945) and toured in "And so to Bed" (1953–1954) and appeared in several musical films in the 1940s. They made frequent broadcasts together. In 1948 they went on a successful concert tour of New Zealand and Australia. When musical tastes changed in the 1950s they decided to emigrate to South Africa in 1956 where they continued their stage work as well as teaching singing in their Johannesburg studio. They returned to the United Kingdom in 1978 where they broadcast on BBC radio, appeared on television in the Russell Harty Show and made personal appearances throughout the United Kingdom in "An Evening with Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth". Booth died on 21 June 1984 at the age of 82. ==Early Life〔(W S Meadmore, Webster Booth, Gramophone 20 November 1935 ) 〕== Born Leslie Webster Booth at 157 Soho Road, Handsworth, Staffordshire, on 21 January 1902, he was the youngest of the six children of hairdresser, Edwin Booth and his wife, Sarah (née Webster). Booth joined his two older brothers in the choir of St. Mary's, the local parish church, and at the suggestion of the choir master, Arthur Guest-Smith, did a voice test at Lincoln Cathedral and joined the choir there at the age of nine, receiving a fine musical training under organist and choirmaster G. J. Bennett, and a free education at the choir school. His voice broke at the age of thirteen, so he returned home to do a commercial course at Aston Commercial, now known as Holte Grammar Commercial School,〔(Holte Grammar Commercial School website )〕 to fulfil his parents’ wish that he should become an accountant. Booth had been advised by Bennett not to sing for three years after his voice broke, so during that time he played goalie in the school football team and was considered good enough to be offered a place with Aston Villa Colts. He was tempted by this offer but eventually decided to pursue his dream of becoming a professional singer rather than a footballer. His headmaster at Aston Commercial School was Edgar Charles Keey, who would later become his father-in-law when he married Keey's daughter, Winifred, in 1924. In his late teens he took singing lessons with Richard Wassall, choir master at St Martin in the Bull Ring, at the Birmingham and Midland Institute. He joined an accountancy firm and was often torn between auditing duties and singing tenor solos in local oratorio performances. At the age of 21 he auditioned for D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, when the company was appearing in Birmingham, and after a second audition in London on the day he was meant to be doing an audit in Wales, he was accepted as a chorister in the company and gave up his desk job. ==Early career== Webster Booth made his first professional stage appearance with D'Oyly Carte as a chorister in ''The Yeomen of the Guard'' on 9 September 1923 at the Theatre Royal, Brighton, under the name Leslie W. Booth. During four seasons with the company, he played chorus roles and a few very small parts.〔Stone, David. ("Webster Booth" ). ''Who Was Who in the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company'', 27 August 2001, accessed 30 August 2010〕 Malcolm Sargent became musical director for the 1926 season, and in later years, Webster Booth was to become one of Sargent's favourite tenors, and made frequent appearances with the Royal Choral Society under Sargent's baton. After a D'Oyly Carte tour of Canada in 1927, Booth felt that he was making little progress in the company and left to pursue his singing career. He returned in 1931, as Webster Booth, to participate in D'Oyly Carte's abridged recording of ''The Gondoliers'' as Luiz. He had married Winifred Keey in London in 1924 and their son, Keith Leslie Booth was born the following year on 12 June 1925. Winifred deserted him and their son in 1927, leaving Booth to bring up his young son with the help of his parents and a faithful housekeeper. The couple divorced in 1931. After Booth left the D'Oyly Carte, he took the stage name of Webster Booth and did freelance singing work. He became a member of Tom Howell's Opieros Concert Party for several seasons, sang in cabaret at various Lyons Restaurants, sang at after-dinner entertainments at numerous Masonic and Guild dinners, and appeared for two seasons in pantomime with Tom Howells at the Brixton Theatre in 1927 and 1928. In 1927 he became a member of the Concert Artistes Association〔( Concert Artistes Association website )〕 and sang at many concerts there. Years later, in 1953 and 1954, he and Anne Ziegler became joint presidents of the association. He was also a member of the Savage Club. He appeared on TV in the fledgling Baird system TV service broadcasting from Daventry. His work was largely of a light nature but he did not abandon oratorio. On 3 November 1928, aged 26, he was tenor soloist in a performance of ''Messiah'' at Birmingham Town Hall with the Choral and Orchestral Union. He sang in many oratorio performances for the rest of his career and at the age of 71 said that singing in oratorio had meant more to him than anything else he had done in his long and varied singing career. In 1929 he was signed by HMV and made many recordings during the next 22 years. In 1930 he made his West End debut in a principal role as the Duke of Buckingham in Rudolf Friml's ''The Three Musketeers'',〔 starring Dennis King at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. By the early thirties he was an established singer. He met his second wife, Dorothy Annie Alice Prior (stage name, Paddy Prior) when she heard him sing in a concert at the Concert Artistes Association. She was a soubrette, mezzo-soprano and comedienne who had worked in the theatre since her late teens. A year after his divorce from Winifred Keey, the couple married at the Fulham Registry Office on 10 October 1932. Booth was engaged in Powis Pinder's〔(Boise State University )〕 Sunshine concert party at the Summer Theatre,〔(Photographs of Summer Theatre )〕 Shanklin on the Isle of Wight for the 1931 and 1932 seasons. There he met and became friends with comedian Arthur Askey, a fellow member of the party. In 1933 Booth and Paddy appeared together in the Piccadilly Revels concert party at Scarborough and the following year both were engaged with Sunshine at Shanklin. At the end of 1934 Booth was selected to sing Faust in a colour film entitled ''The Faust Fantasy''. Irene Frances Eastwood (stage name Anne Ziegler) was chosen to play Marguerite.〔(North West Wales – showbiz – Anne Ziegler and Webster Booth )〕 He also sang in the 1935 film ''The Invader''.〔 By 1935 he was recording and broadcasting frequently and fulfilling many joint engagements with Paddy Prior. In April 1935 he played Juan opposite French actress Jacqueline Francell〔(A Kingdom for a Cow (Kurt Weill) )〕 in Kurt Weill's ''A Kingdom for a Cow''〔(A Kingdom for a Cow (Kurt Weill) )〕 at the Savoy Theatre, but this musical play did not appeal to London audiences and closed after three weeks. He made several films, including ''The Robber Symphony'' in 1935, with music composed and conducted by Friedrich Feher, who also directed the film. Booth sang several Feher songs in the film, including one in Italian. Despite this lighter work, he did not neglect his oratorio singing and was chosen for the Good Friday performance of ''Messiah'' on 10 April 1936 at the Royal Albert Hall with the Royal Choral Society, and the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Sargent, and a month later he again sang at the Royal Albert Hall in ''Hiawatha's Wedding Feast'' by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, with the whole cast in full traditional costume. He sang in ''Der Rosenkavalier'' and was a guard in ''The Magic Flute'' in the International Opera Season at Covent Garden in 1938. The fee was paltry in comparison to what he had been earning, and he vowed to avoid opera in the future, although he made many operatic recordings and broadcasts. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Webster Booth」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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