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Sir Edward Thomas "Ted" Downes, CBE (17 June 1924 – 10 July 2009) was an English conductor, specialising in opera.
He was associated with the Royal Opera House from 1952, and with Opera Australia from 1970. He was also well known for his long working relationship with the BBC Philharmonic and for working with the Netherlands Radio Orchestra. Within the field of opera, he was particularly known as a conductor of Giuseppe Verdi.
He and his wife, Lady Joan Downes, committed assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Switzerland on 10 July 2009, an event that received significant media coverage.
Having spent his lunch hours studying by himself in Birmingham Central Library, he won a scholarship at the age of 16 to the University of Birmingham. Because his parents believed that a musical career was immoral, they made him leave home and he spent his university time as a fire watcher, living in the fire station, while he studied English literature and music. He began playing the French horn. A scholarship to the Royal College of Music to study composition (with Ralph Vaughan Williams and R. O. Morris) and horn (with Frank Probin) followed. Only weeks after starting the course, Probin sent Downes as his deputy on a tour with the London Symphony Orchestra, which continued over the years Downes spent at the college, but on leaving the Royal College he decided that orchestral playing would not be his career. He played in the orchestra at Sadler's Wells in the opening performances of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes in 1945, and at Covent Garden in ballet performances ( The Sleeping Beauty) in 1946, while still at the Royal College of Music. He also played for the orchestra of the San Carlo Opera Company.Downes, Edward, and Loppert, Max, "The product of experience", Opera, January 1993, Vol 44 No 1, pp. 26—39.
After some time on the staff at the University of Aberdeen, where he conducted his first opera, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, Downes' pursuit of conducting was aided by a two-year Andrew Carnegie scholarship which allowed him to study with Hermann Scherchen in Zurich.Jill Lawless, "Conductor Downes, wife die in Swiss suicide clinic" Associated Press 14 July 2009
In 1955 he married Joan Weston, a dancer with the Royal Ballet. She later became a choreographer and television producer. They had two children, a son, Caractacus (born December 1967), a musician and recording engineer, and a daughter, Boudicca (born 1970), a video producer.
His first conducting assignment was taking over from John Barbirolli in La bohème in Bulawayo, while at Covent Garden, it was in 1954 for Der Freischütz. Downes's first experience of conducting a new production came about by accident when the eminent elderly French conductor Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht proved unable to hold the ensemble together, so that after the general rehearsal David Webster and the French ambassador in London persuaded Inghelbrecht to withdraw, and Downes took over from the opening night.
Downes remained a company member for 17 years, returning annually thereafter as a guest conductor before assuming the post of Associate Music Director in 1991. Downes conducted at least 950 performances of 49 operas at Covent Garden, Sir Edward Downes at the Royal Opera House, partial search. Retrieved 25 November 2013. including in 1967, 1968 and 1971.
Elsewhere, he became the Opera Australia's Music Director in 1970, conducting the first operatic performance in the Sydney Opera House in 1973, the Australian premiere of War and Peace by Sergei Prokofiev. He was Chief Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Orchestra until 1983. While Downes worked with many of the world's symphony orchestras, he enjoyed a particularly long relationship with the BBC Philharmonic (formerly the BBC Northern Symphony Orchestra), serving as its Chief Guest Conductor, then Principal Conductor,Keith Potter, "Opera and Concert Reports" (Proms). The Musical Times, 130(1760), pp. 621–35 (October 1989) and finally as Conductor Emeritus.
Downes' first experience of conducting the music of Verdi came when Rafael Kubelík withdrew from a Covent Garden Otello and Downes led the opera with no rehearsal. He felt on home ground, and then championed Verdi revivals in England. He conducted 25 of Verdi's 28 operas, and devised the idea to perform all of them in time for the 2001 centenary of the composer's death. With Paul Findlay, Downes planned a Verdi festival for the Royal Opera House which would cover all Verdi's operas from 1995 to 2001, performing four each year, starting each five-week festival with a large, grand work, then a revival of a repertoire piece then rarities. The plans included using variant arias and ballets. However, the full plans were not completed and Downes expressed regret that he had never conducted Alzira, Un giorno di regno or, especially, Les vêpres siciliennes. The conductor said: "I seemed to understand Verdi as a person. He was a peasant. He had one foot in heaven and one on the earth. And this is why he appeals to all classes of people, from those who know everything about music to those who are hearing it for the first time."Martin Kettle, "Interview: conductor Edward Downes", The Guardian, 14 June 2004
At the BBC Proms he shared the platform with Pierre Boulez for the The Proms premiere of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Gruppen in 1967, and conducted the Proms premieres of Die Jakobsleiter in 1968, Boris Godunov in 1971 and The Fiery Angel in 1991, as well as public premieres of George Lloyd's Symphony No. 6 and works by Roger Smalley, Elizabeth Maconchy and Jonathan Elias.
Lady Downes wrote a letter to family explaining that she had decided against treatment and that:
Sir Edward, aged 85, and Lady Downes, aged 74, ended their lives by assisted suicide at the Dignitas clinic in Zürich, Switzerland, on 10 July 2009. Although Joan did not want the children present, Dignitas encouraged it and "Ted and Joanie" were reported to be pleased when the time came. Their children issued a statement speaking of "serious health problems" suffered by the couple.BBC "Conductor dies in suicide centre" 14 July 2009 "Conductor Sir Edward Downes and wife end lives at Dignitas clinic", The Daily Telegraph (London), 14 July 2009 A statement issued by the couple's children said that while Downes could have gone on living with his deafness and blindness, he did not want to do so after his wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
In March 2010, director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer stated that Caractacus Downes would not be prosecuted for his involvement with his parents' assisted suicide because it was not in the public interest. "No assisted suicide charge for son of Sir Edward Downes", on BBC.co.uk. 19 March 2010
External links
Categories: 1924 Births, 2009 Deaths, 2009 Suicides, English Conductors, British Male Conductors, Alumni Of The Royal College Of Music, Alumni Of The University Of Birmingham, Cor Anglais Players, Commanders Of The Order Of The British Empire, Knights Bachelor, Conductors Awarded Knighthoods, Musicians From Birmingham, West Midlands, Drug-related Suicides In Switzerland, Deaths By Euthanasia, Joint Suicides, 20th-century British Conductors, 20th-century British Male Musicians, Principal Conductors Of The Bbc Philharmonic
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